


The Hofferson House, Est 1850

by BlueberryToasterTart



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, rtte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2018-12-12 10:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 51,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11735310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueberryToasterTart/pseuds/BlueberryToasterTart
Summary: Hiccup Haddock, an independent ghost hunter, has moved into his first house: a Civil War era Victorian on the edge of town. It wasn't just the low price, crown molding, or hardwood floors that caught his eye. The owners claimed the house to be terribly haunted. Ghost Hunter AU. Modern AU. Hiccstrid.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for clicking into my little story here. I've been posting mainly on Fan Fiction, but I'd like to post them here, too. Hope you enjoy!

 

Hiccup Haddock III unlocked the front door to his new house, stepped across the threshold, and swung his arm wide to show his father the Victorian style interior that he’d fallen in love with the instant the realtor had given him the tour.

               “Not bad,” Stoick said as he stepped into the main living space. “It’s a bit big for just you. What’s the square footage?”

               “Two thousand,” Hiccup said. “Mostly original hardwood floors, except the kitchen and bathrooms.”

               Stoic turned sharply, eyes squinted. “And how much did you say you bought it for?”

               Hiccup twisted the large key in his hands. It was bigger than modern keys, but he loved the old-timey feel of it, and the house. Rather than answer his father immediately, he let his stare wander over the built-ins on the east side of the living space. Solid wood. They’d be expensive to buy nowadays.

               “Hiccup?” Stoick asked, frown deepening.

               “Fifty-five,” Hiccup said.

               Stoick’s brows shot upward. “Fifty-five thousand?”

               Hiccup nodded.

               “What’s wrong with this place?” Stoick demanded, making a quick lap of the first floor. He walked through the side door into the dining area, which lead into the recently updated kitchen, which lead through a narrow hallway that divided the living space from the first-floor parlor, or library, or sitting room…Hiccup wasn’t sure what it was. Stoick remerged from the parlor and stood by the stairs that led to the second floor; the banister was thick, shined wood. Each spindle had been hand-carved some hundred years ago, like most of the charm of the house.

               “Nothing,” Hiccup said, twiddling the key around his fingers.

               “Does it flood? Birds in the attic? Asbestos? Mold? Termites? Lead plumbing? Leaks eating away at the foundation?”

               “No, I had all that checked out before I bought it,” Hiccup said.

               “Then what’s the matter with this place? No one in their right mind would sell a two thousand square foot house like this at fifty-five thousand without there being something major wrong with it. Your mother and I paid a hundred and ten for a house half this size.”

               “You also living right in town,” Hiccup said. “I’m a good ten minutes from the city limits. It’s technically in a small suburb, Berk. Population of about fifteen.”

               “Fifteen thousand?”

               “No, uh, just fifteen people. It might be closer to fifty, I’m not sure.”

               Stoick let out a heavy sigh, rubbed his temple, and turned to face his son. “Look, Hiccup, a house is a big responsibility. And it can turn into a costly one. I just wish you’d have told me you were looking before you went and signed your life away on a mistake.”

               “It’s not a mistake,” Hiccup said, defending the home he had saved up for years to purchase, to get away from his parents, to finally start out on his own. “I’m not a little kid, anymore. I had the house checked professionally by the city. They didn’t find anything that might burst or break or cause me problems. The only thing they saw was the roof. It might need to be replaced in the next ten years.”

               Stoick huffed. He set a hand on the banister’s decorative end. He lifted his hand and brought it back down. The banister didn’t budge. He said, “Sturdy.”

               “Let me show you the upstairs,” Hiccup said, and went around his dad to the stairs.

               The upstairs was a long hallway with two bedrooms, one full sized master bath, a narrow staircase that led into the kitchen, a parlor that led out onto a small balcony that overlooked the front lawn, and another small room at the end.

               “Plenty of closet space,” Stoick said, eyeing the empty hallway closet. “Your mother was worried about that.”

               “Each bedroom has a closet,” Hiccup said. “And the master’s got a walk-in.”

               “Your mother would love one of those, maybe we can turn your old room into a walk-in.”

               “She’s got enough shoes.”

               Stoick chuckled. “That she does.”

               Hiccup showed his dad the narrow door beside the stairs that led into the unfinished attic. Stoick let himself up. The stairs hadn’t been stained or painted, and the ceiling had loose, quickly installed instillation between the studs. The bare brick chimney from the downstairs parlor went through the middle of the room and out through the ceiling.

               “You could eventually fix this up as a playroom,” Stoick said, nudging his son in the arm.

               “Or a study,” Hiccup said on his arm. He didn’t tell his father so, but the odds of him working in a finished attic far exceeded the odds of him having children to pay in a finished attic.

               “Aye, or that,” Stoick said.

               They returned to the kitchen and Stoick leaned onto the faux-marble counter top. They’d put real tile on the floor, at least.

               “It’s not a bad place,” Stoick said after a moment. “A little farther away from home that your mother would have liked.”

               “Two hours isn’t that bad of a drive,” Hiccup said. “And it’s scenic. And It’s a twenty minute drive to work.”

               “For your mother, two hours is a long time,” Stoick said. “You know how she hates to ride in the car.”

               “I know,” Hiccup said. He gestured to the house. “But this house was a deal, Dad. I couldn’t let it go. And I can’t drive two hours to work every day. That’s killer on my car.”

               “I know, I know,” Stoick said. “I’m still worried about that price. That’s suspicious.”

               “The owners were moving to Florida and needed to get rid of it,” Hiccup said. He rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn’t technically a lie. “None of their children wanted it, so…I came along at just the right time.”

               “Why didn’t anyone else want it?” Stoick said, gaze narrowed again. “What’s the matter with this house?”

               “Nothing is…the matter,” Hiccup said, gaze drifting over the crown molding. The window panes were wooden, but looked new. They’d been replaced for energy saving reasons, the realtor had said, save for the stained-glass window on the second floor.  

               “Hiccup,” Stoick said, puffing up his chest. “If I go ask the neighbors about this house, what are they going to say?”

               Hiccup took a deep breath, and looked at his father. He looked serious about that threat. Might as well tell him before someone else did. Hiccup let out his breath and said, “They’d probably say something about…itbeinghaunted.”

               “What?” Stoick thundered.

               “The owners claimed that the house was haunted,” Hiccup said. He dropped his arms to his sides. “But, I’ve been here three days already and I haven’t seen or heard anything.”

               “Are you serious, Son?”

               Hiccup groaned.

               “You need to leave all this ghost-hunting nonsense behind you,” Stoick said. “It was cute when you were seven, but you’re nearly twenty-five. It’s time to grow up and realize there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

               Hiccup wanted to argue with his father on that, but he held his breath. He’d learned that Stoick “the Vast” Haddock didn’t do well with arguing.

               “I’ve already been approved for the loan and signed,” Hiccup said. He held the key tighter. “The house is mine.”

               Stoick groaned. He sighed, and sat up straight. “And we’re proud that you’ve taken that step, Son, we are.”

               “Then don’t worry about how ‘supposedly’ haunted the house is,” Hiccup said. “Like you said, ghosts aren’t real. So, I probably got the house at a steal.”

               “You’re right,” Stoick said, rubbing his temple.

               After promises to keep in touch, Hiccup led his father to the front door. He stood on the front porch as his father drove away. Hiccup waved, and didn’t go back inside until he no longer could see his father’s car down the gravel road.

               Hiccup shut the door, and locked it. He took in the slightly musty, unused air, and let out a sigh.

               _His_ house.

               Hiccup’s house.

               It had a nice ring to it.

               He opened the pocket doors to the first-floor parlor/sitting room and sat down at one of the few pieces of furniture that he’d brought with him when he’d moved: a small writing desk. Beside it, he opened the plastic drawers he’d had since his first college dorm room. Inside, he pulled out the notebook he’d kept since he’d found out about the house. He scanned his notes:

  * Built in 1850 by Randal J. Hofferson and his brother Jacob H. Hofferson. Also living in the house at that time: Randal’s wife, Ingrid L. Hofferson, Randal and Ingrid’s son, Willie Hofferson, who later enlisted in the Union Army and died in 1864.
  * In 1853, Jacob and Karla suffered a miscarriage that also took Karla’s life.
  * In 1855, Randal and Ingrid had a daughter, Astrid Hofferson.
  * In 1859, Randal and Ingrid had another son, Robert Hofferson.
  * Both brothers enlisted for the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. Both made it home. According to local gossip Hiccup had learned from the ancient librarian, Randal hadn’t known his son had joined the army. Willie had been put in charge of the household in case something happened to both brothers. When Randal came home to discover that his son had gone, and later had died, he’d gone into a deep depression.



Hiccup’s only historical evidence on that story came on Randal Hofferson’s death certificate which read he’d been receiving medication for mania, which back then could have been anything from depression to cancer.

Things hadn’t gotten better for the Hofferson’s.

  * In 1965, Robert Hofferson dies, cause unknown.
  * In 1870, Jacob Hofferson dies in his sleep, cause unknown.
  * In 1880, Astrid Hofferson dies from apparently suicide. She was found in the second bedroom upstairs, which had been her room. Speculations point to it being because of a man, but Hiccup could find no hard evidence to suggest that.
  * In 1885, only Randal and his wife Ingrid lived in the house. According to the historical records, they had tried for another child, but Ingrid was getting to be too old.



A thump from upstairs caused Hiccup to pause. He looked up from his notebook, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one stood in the doorway, or spoke. He listened harder, but he heard nothing. Above him, the dainty light fixture moved, ever so slightly.

Hiccup set his notebook onto the desk, and reached for one of the boxes he’d brought with him in the move. He’d made sure to bring his ghost-hunting equipment. He didn’t hold it past his dad to throw it out while he wasn’t looking.

Hiccup set the EVP recorder on the desk, and dug out his thermal imaging camera. He put two new batteries into the camera, clipped the EVP recorder to his shirt’s pocket and headed upstairs to where the thump had come from: the room directly above the first floor parlor, which happened to also be Astrid Hofferson’s bedroom, the room where she supposedly hung herself. 


	2. Chapter 2

Hiccup tiptoed into the hall and stopped just before the stairs. He saw nothing at the top, only the sunlight dappling in from the windows. The dust danced through the beams, downward toward the right, swirling – the kind of swirling not caused by gravity. It moved not of its own.

               Something, or someone, had moved the dust on the second-floor hall.

               Hiccup lifted his foot onto the first stair, keeping his eyes on the moving dust, waiting for something, anything. He inched his way, EVP on his collar, thermal imager in one hand, EMF detector in the other. So far, the EMF remained silent. The red needle hadn’t moved past the normal.

               He occasionally glanced down at the thermal, but kept his eyes ahead to keep himself from tripping. He held it to capture; he’d review it later.

                Hiccup paused at the top of the stairs.

               The hallways stretched out on either side of him, exactly as he remembered it. His bedroom door stood open, as did the others; he’d opened them to show his father around, and had left them that way.

               He turned to the left, toward the room where he’d heard the thump above the parlor, the room where Astrid Hofferson had taken her last breath.

               The previous owners had taken their furniture with them, but they’d left things that had been original to the house. They’d told Hiccup, once they were outside the house, that they were afraid to take it with them. They didn’t want any spirits to follow them.

               In Astrid’s room, there was an old, solid, heavy vanity. A dainty stool sat in front of the dusty, dirty mirror that reflected a garbled image of Hiccup in the doorway. The bedframe was made from some dark wood – the real estate woman had been adamant about it, from Africa or somewhere – the dark posts spiraled up in a delicate pattern. The headboard had been carved by someone skilled at the craft.

               The original wallpaper had faded, and had been peeled away some time ago. The room had been freshly painted a pale yellow, with crown molding on the ceiling and floors, and around the windows, too. The floor, the real estate agent assured, was the original.

               Hiccup made a slow lap of the room, EMF outstretched. The needled moved only gradually, but never left the green zone. Green represented the normal magnetic field of the earth. Yellow represented a high reading. Red meant very high. Normal things gave off reads, like electric boxes or poor wiring, but sometimes, _other_ things did too.

               Nothing appeared on the thermal; everything in the room was a blue, green, or yellow. The warmer the thing on the camera, the redder it was. Cold showed up as blue. Living things appeared as red, or yellow in the distance.

               “Hello?” Hiccup called softly into the room. “Is someone in here with me?”

               No one answered; the needle on the EMF spiked into the yellow, then fell back into the green.

               “I’m not here to hurt you,” Hiccup said. “I don’t want to scare you. I’m here to talk to you. My name is Hiccup Haddock. I’ve got a lot of experience talking to people just like you. You’re trapped. You don’t know where you’re going or what to do. I know. Well, not personally, but I’ve talked to people like you before. It’s what I do.”

               The needle rose into the yellow. The EMF whined.

               Someone was there.   

               “I’ve written books about helping people like you,” Hiccup said to the room. “And I would like to help you, too. But before I can help you, I need to know about you. Are you here?”

               No one answered. The EVP on his collar recorded; he’d know if they’d spoke later. The EMF stayed in the yellow, firmly, not wavering as it normally did.

               “Don’t let this equipment frighten you,” Hiccup said. “It’s not here to hurt you. It’s here to help me see you and hear you. If you speak to me, I might not hear you right now, but when I listen to this device,” he fingered the EVP recorder, “I’ll hear you.”

               Hiccup turned about the room, looking for anything – the disruption of dust, the shimmer on the air, the slight distortion – but he saw nothing.

               Hiccup stood by the bed, EMF in hand, and turned toward the vanity. There, in the dusty mirror, stood someone in the doorway, someone in blue; Hiccup wore dark green. The shadowy figure, blurred by the grime on the mirror, stood tall, in a blue floor-length gown, or it might have been gray.

               He turned, but the doorway was empty.

               “I saw you,” Hiccup whispered. “Don’t be afraid of me, please.”

               He held the thermal on the doorway, but no heat signature appeared. The EMF went silent. Hiccup held the camera in front of him as he entered the hall again, but he saw nothing. The dust had settled elsewhere.

               Hiccup performed a sweep of the entire house, including the unfinished attic, but he found nothing of the blue woman. He returned to the parlor, recorded the session in his notes, set the EVP on the desk to shift through later, and began the task he’d saved for after his father’s visit; the wiring of the house.

               Hiccup set a camera in each room of interest: Astrid’s room, his new bedroom, the hallway, the entrance way, and the main living space which looked across the hall and into his office-parlor. He set the Shadow Detector in the upstairs hallway. If anything moved, he’d hear the beeping of the Shadow Detector.

               Hiccup returned to his office – command center – a little after dusk. He had to meet with his editor tomorrow, and couldn’t stay up that late, though he wanted to stay and monitor the cameras for the Woman in Blue, as he’d started calling her.

               He couldn’t wait to tell his editor about her, and the house. She’ll be thrilled. Maybe there’d be another bonus in it for him.

               Hiccup went upstairs, showered, changed for bed, and fell into the familiar mattress in the unfamiliar bed frame – he’d taken the old master suite. The bed frame in there had been hand-carved, as well, and looked fit for someone much more notable and famous than Hiccup, maybe a president in a bygone era.

               Some people might have had trouble falling asleep in a supposedly haunted house, especially after witnessing one of those such inexplicable events, but Hiccup Haddock had no trouble. He fell nearly immediately into a deep sleep.

 

X

 

               Hiccup woke to a hand on his shoulder. His mother, most likely, urging him out of bed before ten. She’d always been an early riser.

               He’d set his alarm; he’d be fine. He wouldn’t be late for the meeting.

               The hand on his shoulder persisted.

               Hiccup rolled over, and the bed let out a strange noise.

               The new house. The new bed. It hadn’t been his mother’s hand.

               Hiccup’s eyes opened at once. The light from the windows was pale and gray – predawn. He sat up – no one stood in his room. He could feel the place on his arm where the hand had touched him, firm and solid.

               “Hello?” Hiccup asked.

               No one answered.

               He sat for a moment more, waiting for someone to show themselves, but no one did. He reached over for his phone on the bedside table – he’d woken an hour early.

               He couldn’t go back to sleep, not after that awakening. He got up and walked down the kitchen, keeping one eye over his shoulder, and started the coffee. While it brewed, he returned to his office to record the occurrence with the hand.

               If the Hofferson house kept this pace up, he’d have more than enough material for a book in less than a year. He’d have to call Fishlegs and tell him. He’ll be thrilled.

               Hiccup leaned back in his chair, stretching his hands above his head, when he saw it. The EVP recordings from the night before. He grabbed it and plugged it into his computer. He set his thermal camera footage beside it on the monitor. He could listen and watch at the same time. He withdrew headphones from the desk, and hit play.

               The soft, fuzzy static sounded in the headphones. Each step he took thumped, heel-toe, on the wooden floors. The camera tilted has he scanned back and forth, but nothing showed up.

               At the foot of the stairs, the camera did a sweep of the space. At the top of the stairs, barely in frame, was a heat signature. Everything around it was a cool blue or green. The camera moved – Hiccup slowed the footage. Just before the camera panned away, the heat signature moved. It moved in a very leg-like pattern, one first, then the other, and then they were out of frame.

               The camera began to slowly make its way up the stairs, to where Hiccup had seen the dust moving about.

               Whatever had moved had moved toward the opposite end of the hall from Astrid’s room. That explained why she hadn’t been in the room. She had gone the other way. Why?

               Hiccup paused to scribble in his notes. He might be doing his EVP session in the wrong room.

               The camera continued into Astrid’s room.

               His own voice came through the static, “Hello? Is someone in here with me?”

               No one answered. The EMF spiked, then dissipated.

               “I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t want to scare you. I’m here to talk to you. My name is Hiccup Haddock. I’ve got a lot of experience talking to people just like you. You’re trapped. You don’t know where you’re going or what to do. I know. Well, not personally, but I’ve talked to people like you before. It’s what I do.”

               The EMF rose again, but between the creaking of the electronic whines, a sound he hadn’t heard before chimed. It sounded distinctly feminine, but distant.

               He went back a few seconds, to the tail end of his speech. He fiddled with the audio program, and downplayed the EMF static, and there, between the hush-hush of the recorder, he heard garble that might have been, “I’m not afraid of you.”

               That spot between his shoulder blades spasmed and he felt something cold along his back. It was a woman, young by the sounds.

               “I’ve written books about helping people like you. And I would like to help you, too. But before I can help you, I need to know about you. Are you here?”

               Amid the static if the EMF, she said, “Of course, I’m here. Where are you?”

               “Don’t let this equipment frighten you. It’s not here to hurt you. It’s here to help me see you and hear you. If you speak to me, I might not hear you right now, but when I listen to this device, “I’ll hear you.”

               “Why should I believe you?”

               Her voice had come through clear as if she stood right next to him.

               Hiccup jerked his head up from his desk, and glanced about this office. He saw nothing. Yet he had the strange sensation that he was not alone in the room. He knew he wasn’t alone in the house.

               The camera panned over to the doorway where he’d seen the reflection of the Woman in Blue. Someone stood in the doorway. A very clear heat signature of a woman in a period dress stood in the doorway.

               “I saw you,” Hiccup said on the recorder. His voice sounded weaker than it had a moment before. “Don’t be afraid of me, please.”

               “Why would I be afraid of you?”

               The static garble took over.

               “Aren’t you going to say anything else?”

               The heat signature tilted her head, then turned and walked away.

               The EVP session ended, and Hiccup saved the audio file as Day 1.

              

X

               Hiccup washed and dressed without incident or sighting. He left the house with time to spare. He drove to the city and to his editor’s office, which was an office suite in a five-story building which had been converted from an old factory. Hiccup was pouring himself a cup of coffee in the lounge when his editor walked in.

               “Heather,” Hiccup said in greeting. “Good morning.”

               “Hiccup?” she asked. Her dark, well-groomed brows rose. “You’re early. Is the sky falling?”

               “Nope,” Hiccup said. “I just work up early. I couldn’t wait to tell you the news.”

               “You moved into the Hofferson house,” Heather said. “Come on, talk to me in the office.”

               Hiccup followed Heather through the quiet floor to her office. One wall held every book she’d ever worked on. She didn’t have as many of some of the older editors, but she had quickly built a reputation in the paranormal publishing world. She’d discovered Hiccup Haddock and his amateur ghost hunting team, after all, which had led to three best sellers in four years.  

               Hiccup was banking on selling number four.

               “What possessed you to take on that project?” Heather asked. She took a bottle water from the little fridge beside her desk, whose top she’d started using as an extension of her desk.

               “The house is beautiful, and in great shape,” Hiccup said. He hesitated for anticipation, and then said, “and it’s haunted.”

               “For real or is that just an excuse the owners used?”

               “No, I’ve seen it in action,” Hiccup said. He told her about his experiences so far in the house. “I call her the Woman in Blue. The Hofferson house is a goldmine.”

               “Are you sure?” Heather asked.

               “Yes,” Hiccup nodded. “I’ve already started recording. I’ve got cameras set up in the important rooms.”

               Heather leaned back in her chair, debating. “Alright. Write me up a proposal and sample chapter. I’ll see what I can do with it. Tomorrow, if you’re feeling up to it.”

               “Tomorrow it is,” Hiccup said.

               The meeting went into the typical sale figures. His books were selling wider and wider with each month. He had graduated from ‘local author’ to ‘regional author’ and his recent figures showed his books being bought in stores from Atlanta to Amarillo and all the way up to St. Paul.

               “I’ve got this offer on some an ABC offshoot. They want to do an interview with you. It’s exciting. It’s not quite national television, but it’s a start. Next stop might be a TV show,” Heather said. “Yes or no?”

               Hiccup hesitated. National television? The thought settled somewhere in his stomach like a rock. “I-I’m going to say no.”

               “I thought so, but I thought I’d ask first,” Heather said. She wadded up the request and tossed it into the trash. “I’ll let them down gently.”

               “I’ve got another one, an online magazine and podcast, Exploring the Paranormal with Steven and Mark,” Heather said, reading from her notes.

               “I’ll do that one,” Hiccup nodded. He wouldn’t be seen on a podcast.

               Hiccup Haddock left Heather’s office in high spirits. His odds of getting his next book published were high. It felt strange to think that people were _requesting_ his presence. It felt like only a few months ago that he was sending out query letters of his first ghost hunting book.

               He didn’t drive straight home. He stopped for groceries and the necessities, including batteries, bulbs, and a zip drive with plenty of space for everything on the Hofferson house.

               Driving home, he felt the same jittery nerves that he’d felt going into his first “official” ghost hunt with Fishlegs. It was the thrill of something new, something he’d always wanted to do; his dreams were at his fingertips. He could tell that there was something different about the Hofferson house, something unlike any other house he’d hunted in. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew that he soon would.

 

X

 

Vocab –

 

EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomena

EMF – Electromagnetic Field Detector

 

A/N – I’m not making any of this ghost hunting equipment up. I’ve watched a lot of Ghost Hunters in my day. At one point, it was my favorite show. These are all devices that they used.


	3. Chapter 3

Hiccup woke up to a screech. He tried to roll over, but couldn’t.

Reality set in: he’d fallen asleep at his desk. He sat up and rubbed the place on his cheek where the cord to the headphones had bitten into his skin. He glanced at the time on the computer monitor. Twenty past two in the morning.

               The screech had come from the shadow detector in the second floor hallway.

               Hiccup saw nothing on the camera, but he grabbed his EVP recorder from the charger and clipped it to his shirt. He grabbed three mini-flashlights. He took the stairs one at a time, as to not startle anyone. He hit the record button on the EVP recorder.

               “Hello?” Hiccup asked. “Are you up here?”

               No one answered.

               The shadow detector worked by a set of invisible laser beams that went from one box and into the other. When stretched across a doorway or hall, anything that crossed the beams set off the alarm. It took more than dust; only something of substance could break the beams.

               Hiccup sat on the floor with his back to Astrid’s room. He set the three flashlights in front of him, each facing down the hall.

               “I’d like to talk to you,” Hiccup said. “I know that you might be here even if I can’t hear you, which is why I brought these. They’re like torches, but modern. I helped to make them especially for people like you. All you have to do is touch them and they’ll turn on for a second.”

               Hiccup demonstrated. He touched his index finger to the rim of the first flashlight. The bulb lit up. He removed his finger. The bulb stayed lit for three-quarters of a second. He and Fishlegs had designed them.

               “This flashlight to my right will represent ‘yes.’ This flashlight to my left will represent ‘no.’ The one in the middle represents ‘I don’t know.’ I’m going to ask you a few questions, and this way you can answer me. Do you understand?”

               Nothing happened. Hiccup waited, the anticipation tickling his arms. He loved this part and he hated it. When he was a kid, he hated the waiting in the horror movies. He knew something would happen, but not when. Unlike in the movies, he didn’t know if something would happen, which almost made the waiting worse. He loved the thrill.

               “Are you here with me?” Hiccup asked again.

               He was about to stand up and call it a night, when the flashlight to his right lit up. His heart skipped a beat.

               “Thank you,” he said. “Are you ready to begin?”

               It took a moment, but the right flashlight turned on, then off.

               He took a breath, and then asked, “Did you live in this house?”

               Yes.

               “Are you a man?”

               No.

               “You’re a woman,” he said. He had guessed, but he wanted to see if the spirit could make the other light come on, too. “Do you know your name?”

A moment later, Yes.

               “Astrid?”

               Yes.

               “Thank you, Astrid,” Hiccup said. “Do you know what year it is?”

               No.

               “It’s 2016,” Hiccup said.

               No.

               Hiccup laughed, “I know, that’s a jump from 1880. Is that the year you remember?”

               Yes.

               Hiccup steeled himself, and said, “That’s the year that you died.”

               Silence. The air prickled slightly and turned cold like he stood in front of a freezer.

               “Astrid, I know this might be hard to think about, but do you remember how you died?”

               For a while, nothing. And then, the flashlight to his left lit up. No.

               “I read about it,” Hiccup said. “The coroner in your time ruled it a suicide.”

               The flashlight in the middle lit up.

               “Do you remember anything about that night?”

               No.

               “Do you remember the war?”

               Yes.

               “We call it the Civil War, now. It’s considered the bloodiest battle on American soil. Your father and uncle fought in the war, didn’t they?”

               Yes.

               “Your brother, too,” Hiccup said. “Was your family happy after the war ended?”

               For a moment, she said nothing. And then, the middle flashlight lit up.

               “You don’t know?” Hiccup asked. “Or, is it more complicated than a yes or no?”

               Yes.

               “I understand,” Hiccup said. “I was born before my parents were married. Then got married when I was ten, but everyone was concerned that they were together just because they had me. People assumed that they weren’t happy, but we were. It’s always more complicated than just a yes or a no.”

               Yes.

               “Astrid, can you see me?”

               Yes.

               “Where are you?”

               For a moment, nothing happened. Then, icy cold feathered against the back of his hand. A younger him would have jumped, but he’d learned to control his surprise.

               “You’re right beside me?”

               Yes.

               The cold lingered on the back of his hand, and the more he concentrated on it, the more it felt like four slender fingers laying across his skin.

               “I guess it’s been a while since you had someone to talk to,” he said.

               Yes.

               “I-I spend more time talking to people like you than I do anyone else,” Hiccup said.

               The middle flashlight lit up.

               “It’s complicated,” he said. “I’ve always been interested in the paranormal, that’s what we call what it. It’s things that we can’t readily explain by science. When I was younger, we’d spend weekends at my grandparent’s house by the lake. Then, Grandpa died, and when we went to visit Grandma, I saw Grandpa sitting out at the docks like he always had. I went down to talk to him and we had a whole conversation. And then my dad came down, mad that I was talking to myself.

               “But, he moved on when Grandma passed away. I have this…image of them. I’m not sure if I saw it or I dreamed it, but they’re standing at the dock, but they’re not old like I remember them. They’re younger, like I’ve seen them in pictures. They’re smiling and holdings hands, and then they vanished. I think that means they moved on.”

               The fingers on his hand squeezed.

               “I started looking into other haunted houses and I started writing about my experiences. I’ve written three books so far about the people I’ve helped,” Hiccup said. “Astrid, I want to help you move. Is that okay?”

               Yes.

               “That’s great,” Hiccup said. “That means we’ll spending a lot of time together.”

               Yes.

               He laughed. He liked Astrid already. He yawned, and Astrid patted his hand.

               “I know, I should get to sleep,” he said.

               Yes.

               “If I do go to sleep, you’ll talk to me tomorrow?”

               Yes.

               “Thank you, Astrid,” he said. “Goodnight.”

               Yes.

               He gathered up the flashlights, carried them and the EVP downstairs, and headed up to the bedroom. He readied in the bathroom with the door closed. He kept his eyes on the mirror, but he didn’t see anyone watching him.

              

X

 

               Hiccup woke up to a warm light. The entire room glowed. Hiccup sat up, and had his feet on the floor before he noticed. The covers on the bed were not his own.

He stood up. His blue cover had been replaced by a dark red one. The room was his, but it wasn’t. The walls were a shade of cream; two sitting chairs were angled by a filled bookcase by the window; the drapes were drawn back with ribbons; and paintings hung on the walls that he had never bought.

               He ran into the hall. His footsteps made no sound on the hardwood.

               He nearly ran into a woman as she stepped out of the parlor. He skidded to a halt, but she made no notice of him. She walked right through him, as if made of light. Hiccup spun, and watched her walk into the bedroom he had just come from, only the door had closed. Hiccup followed the woman inside. The bed had been made, too.

               “Hey,” Hiccup called, but his voice made no sound.

               The woman tucked a book into the bookcase, and walked out again. She walked through Hiccup, only this time he was better prepared. He stood his ground, but she made no notice. She walked through him. He felt nothing, no shimmer of light, no heavy presence. It all lit a panic in his chest that bubbled into his throat.

               Hiccup followed the woman down the stairs and into the kitchen, where everything had gone back in time. His coffee pot was gone. A man in an old suit sat at the table, reading a letter.

               Hiccup fumbled in his rush to get to the man, who continued reading as if Hiccup was there. The letter looked new, but the date in the corner read August 9, 1859.

               “What?” Hiccup asked.

               The man looked up and spoke; his lips moved, but no sound came out. The woman spoke but, equally as quiet. They spoke to one another across the room as if Hiccup did not stand between them. How did they not?

The woman’s attention drifted upstairs and she marched out of the kitchen. Hiccup leaned back over the man’s shoulder to read some of his letter. The script was so outdated it was hard to follow.

               It talked about the north and south, and he spotted Lincoln’s name, and the mention of runaway slaves. The writer of the letter didn’t seem to be pleased with someone else, from the south.

               Hiccup wished he’d paid more attention in history class.

               The woman came back into the kitchen holding a small girl with a mess of blonde hair tied back into a braid. It had been slept on, and the young girl didn’t look happy. She pouted in her mother’s arms.

               The mother turned back to the man at the table, and opened her mouth, but suddenly the kitchen flashed white. Hiccup stumbled backward, and his backside smacked into his folding table, the one that he’d bought.

               He stood back in his kitchen, with his coffeepot on the counter, with his day-old coffee from the morning before.

               He placed a hand over his racing heart. What the hell?

               It was daylight. He stumbled into the folding chair and slumped his head onto the tabletop. After his heart returned to normal, he warmed up the day-old coffee and drank half a cup black before he reached for the sugar and cream.

               He walked to his office and sat at his desk. He woke up his computer and while it booted, he recorded the strange event in his notebook. His penmanship shook. _Physically_ _shaken_ , he wrote.

               The cameras showed the house has it was in his time.

               He rummaged through his books that were still packed. At the bottom of the box, he found the one he wanted. It was an old book, translated into modern English from German, which had been translated from Japanese; the original book had ceased to exist, and it had taken Hiccup years of searching rare-book shops, online rummage sales, garage sales, and thrift stores to finally find a copy.

               He turned the delicate pages to the section he needed.

               Trans-time crossing - An event in which one moves forward or backward through time. Typically restricted to one location.

He’d heard about it, and briefly read about it, but he’d never experienced it. Until that morning, he doubted its reality. Hiccup turned to the internet, but a search on _trans-time crossing_ reared little to nothing. No one had evidence to back it up. He had not been dreaming, he knew that for certain. It was like he had become the ghost, but how?

Hiccup went to the forum on his own website, the one that he and Fishlegs had started back in high school. With maintaining and updating, it had become a well-visited paranormal investigation site. He started a new topic, and titled it Trans-Time Crossing. He had a few mysterious people in the forum that knew odd things; if they didn’t know, then he wasn’t sure he’d find anything.

Hiccup minimized the site and returned to his ghost hunting monitors. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Hiccup rubbed his face, and stood. He hadn’t gotten the mail the day before.

He walked down the side of the gravel drive, in the summer grass, to the mailbox beside the road. He hadn’t added his name to it yet, but the address had been freshly painted when he bought the place.

Inside, he found a thin stack of letters, three of which were addressed to former residents. The last one had his name on it in hand-written ink and his parents’ return address in the corner.

He half-laughed. They would.

Hiccup tucked the mail under his arm and started back toward the house. Movement in the upstairs balcony caught his eye.

There, sitting on the balcony, was a blonde woman in a blue dress.


	4. Chapter 4

 

There, sitting on the balcony, was a blonde woman in a blue dress. She looked as real as anything else.

Hiccup stopped dead. He dropped the mail. He blinked, but she didn’t move. He lifted his arm and waved to her.

               She shifted in the chair and then waved back.

               Hiccup left the mail in the grass and ran back to the house. He bolted through the door, up the stairs, and into the second-floor parlor that led out onto the balcony. He yanked the door open.

               The balcony was empty.

               The chair that he had so clearly seen her in was empty.

               “Astrid?” Hiccup asked.

               He had nothing. No flashlight. No EVP recorder. No camera. He hadn’t hooked the parlor’s balcony into his monitoring.

               No one answered.

               He said anyway, “I saw you. I did. You were sitting here, right here in this chair. You were wearing blue. Your hair was up. It’s blonde.”

               A soft, cold sensation met the back of his hand.

               “You’re here,” he said.

               He was sure, if he had brought the flashlights, she would have said yes.

 

X

 

               Hiccup fixed himself a quick breakfast of eggs and toast, and then set to work. He hadn’t gotten around to listening to the EVP session from the night before. Instead, he downloaded the files and emailed them to Fishlegs, asking him to give them a listen if he had the time.

               Hiccup started the task he’d been dreading. Unpacking.

               So far, he’d only unpacked what he had to, and most of his things were still in boxes. He started in the office and put his books, which he’d shuffled through earlier, in their proper place on the built-ins. He flattened the cardboard box and tossed it out onto the porch. He’d either burn them or take them into town to recycle. He hadn’t decided yet.

               It took all morning to get his office into some semblance of order, and after a quick lunch of microwave pizza, he started on his bedroom. He hung his clothes in the closest and put a picture of his parents on the dresser. It had been his mother’s gift to him when he’d announced that he’d bought a house. He propped up her card beside it. Inside, she’d written a short story of when she had moved out on her own for the first time. She’d lived in an apartment the size of a closet with an ant problem.

               He loved his mother, even when she got to be overbearing.

               He unloaded his things in the bathroom, which didn’t take long. He didn’t have that much, and he’d left what he didn’t need. He could always buy more toothpaste or shaving cream, not that the hair on his face grew fast enough. He’d be fifty before he had a beard like his father’s.

               Hiccup tossed his razor into a drawer and flattened the shoe box he’d used to carry his toiletries. Hiccup stepped over to the toilet and unzipped his jeans; he started to empty his bladder. He hadn’t gone since that morning.

               He stretched his neck, and his gaze rolled over the mirror.

               He’d left the door to the bedroom open, and the Woman in Blue stood in the doorway, in clear sight of his…parts.

               Hiccup yelped, and his stream came an abrupt halt. He shifted his hands over himself, and felt his face burn.

               He looked up, but the Woman in Blue was gone. 

               “Geeze,” Hiccup said. He glanced around the bathroom, and not seeing anyone, quickly finished his business, and tucked himself back in. He washed his hands, and returned to the bedroom, but he didn’t see her. “Sorry about that, I-I didn’t expect you to appear like that.”

               No one answered, and of course he hadn’t brought his EVP with him.

               “I know I said I wanted to talk, but, uh, maybe the bathroom isn’t the best place to come find me,” Hiccup said. How should he talk about privacy with a ghost? “Maybe, it’s best if we set some house rules since we’re both living here. Is that okay?”

               No one answered.

               The picture on his dressed shifted.

               Hiccup caught his breath, afraid the picture would fall. But it didn’t. He said, “My parents. I’m an only child, and I think they’re sad to see me leave the nest.”

               Hiccup stood still. Soft footsteps, like socked feet, padded across the floor and into the hall.

               Hiccup followed, but he lost the footsteps in the hall. He walked back down to his computer, fetched his flashlights and EVP, and headed back to the hall.

               “Astrid?” Hiccup called. He set the flashlights on the floor like he’d done the night before. “How about, when the bathroom door is closed, it means that I’m taking some private time. Okay?”

               Nothing happened.

               Hiccup swallowed. Had he upset her? Women in the 1880s would have been more modest than modern woman. Odds were that Astrid had never seen a naked man. Most women didn’t until they married.

               “Is there a room that you’d prefer me not to go into?” Hiccup asked to the empty hall. “We can both have our private spaces. Mine is the bathroom in the bedroom. You can have any room you’d like, at least up here. I’m kind of using the downstairs. Astrid?”

               Yes.

               Hiccup breathed relief. “I thought for a moment you were mad at me.”

               No.

               “I’m sorry to startle you. I’m used to my own bathroom. I’ll shut the door from now on.”

               After a moment, the no flashlight lit up.

               “No?” Hiccup asked, laughing. “You don’t want me to close the door?”

               Yes.

               “You want me to keep it open?”

               Yes.

               Hiccup stuttered. “Oh, well, uh, that’s the first time a woman’s said that to me.”

               The middle flashlight turned on.

               Hiccup laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. He cleared his throat, and said, “There’s not really much gray area there. I’m not that social. But, getting back on the subject, is there a room you’d like me to stay out of?”

               Yes.

               “Is it your bedroom,” Hiccup said, pointing to the room that had once been hers.

               Yes.

               “Okay,” Hiccup said. “I’ll leave the door closed, and when I’m using the bathroom, I’ll shut the door.”

               Yes.

               Hiccup took a deep breath. He was glad that the issue had been solved so easily. He was about to ask Astrid another question, when the shrill series of melodic beats of his phone’s ringtone broke the air.

               The middle flashlight turned on.

               Hiccup started to stand. “No, it’s alright, it’s my phone.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

               Fishlegs was calling.

               Hiccup hit the green phone icon and held the phone to his hear. He knew how odd it must look for Astrid, frightening even, to see technology that her time hadn’t even dreamed about.

               “Hello?” Hiccup asked.

               “Oh my god, Hiccup!” Fishlegs squealed on the other side. His voice sounded distant. Speakerphone.

               “Yes? Is everything alright?”

               “Alright? Are you joking me right now?”

               “I don’t think so,” Hiccup said.

               “Hiccup,” Fishlegs said, his voice serious, “did you listen to that EVP you sent me?”

               “I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ve been a bit busy. I’ve been unpacking most of the morning.”

               “It’s amazing!” Fishlegs said, his voice cracking. “Is it real? Please tell me it’s real! I know it’s not like you to fake things, but please tell me it’s real!”

               “Oh, it’s real,” Hiccup said. Maybe he should have listened to it after all. “I take it that someone’s talking back?”

               “Oh, she’s talking back,” Fishlegs said. “It sounded like she was in the room with you. Is that the ghost? The dead girl? The one that hung herself?”

               “I think so,” Hiccup said. He glanced around the room. The house was quiet enough that if Astrid stood by, she could hear every word that Fishlegs said. “She doesn’t remember it.”

               “You’ve talked to her?”

               “I’ve gotten a lot of progress out of the flashlights.”

               “I knew those would come in handy.”

               Hiccup started to say something else when he heard a car honk, and the rumble of a big truck. “Fishlegs, are you driving?”

               “Yes,” Fishlegs said. “I took tomorrow off and I’m driving down there. I need to see this house for myself.”

               “Oh,” Hiccup said. He looked around for Astrid, but didn’t see her.

               “Do you not want me to?”

               “No, that’s not what I meant,” Hiccup said quickly. “I-I was in the middle of something when you called. I think she might have gotten frightened off by my phone.”

               “Oh no!” Fishlegs said. “I didn’t mean to! I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about an hour and a half. Do you think she’ll talk to me, too?”

               “I don’t know, Fishlegs,” Hiccup said. “I can’t speak for her.”

               “Right, you’re only the ‘ghost whisperer.’”

               Hiccup shrugged. “No, I’m not.”

               Someone had given him that name during the first boom their website took, after Hiccup had posted some of his successful EVP sessions. The term stuck after his first book had hit the bestseller. He’d had a way with the ghosts. They seemed to open up to him quicker than anyone else, and stay with him longer. He couldn’t explain it any more than he could explain why ghosts existed.

               Hiccup ended the call with the expected formalities and stuck the phone back into his pocket.

               “Astrid?”

               No one answered. The flashlights remained off.

               “I’m sorry,” he said, and he truly felt it. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

               He pulled his phone out and set it on the floor. The black, reflective screen looked up at the ceiling.

               “It’s a way of communicating to people in other locations,” Hiccup said. “I was talking to my friend, Fishlegs. He lives about one hundred miles away, but we can talk instantly. It’s complicating to explain how they work, and to be honest I’m not sure I know. Are you still here?”             

               Hiccup was looking down the hall, when a flicker of movement caught his eye. The screen of his phone reflected something other than the ceiling. From his angle, it looked like smoke, but he knew it must be Astrid.

               “I am sorry, Astrid,” he repeated. “Everyone has phones like this nowadays, and I admit that I’m not used to talking with someone who’s never seen a phone before. I know how different today’s world must feel from yours. It’s probably overwhelming.”

               Yes.

               “Did it upset you when I put technology around the house?”

               Yes.

               “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll take down the camera in your room. Right now. But, since it is your personal space, I’ll only go inside with your permission. Okay?”

               Yes.

               Hiccup stood and walked over to the door that lead into Astrid’s room. In the mirror, he saw his own distorted reflected.

               “Astrid, may I come into your room?”

               Yes.

               Hiccup stepped over the threshold. He’d placed the camera on a stand beside the bed so he could see the window, the bed, the vanity stool, and the doorway. He walked to the camera, unplugged it, turned it off, and carried the camera and the stand into the hallway. He wound the cords around his arm so they wouldn’t get tangled. He set the cords down by the stand and stood up to closed Astrid’s door.

               He saw her in the mirror, standing in the doorway, between him and the mirror. He looked to the spot where she stood.

               If he concentrated, he could see the slightly change of the air, the tiny distortion, like heat rising from the blacktop in July.

               “I can see you,” he said, eyes on her. “But just barely.”

               An image came to his mind, a young woman of twenty-five, Astrid’s age. She was blonde and wore her hair in a braid down her shoulder. Her eyes were startling blue. She wore little to no makeup and her lips were a pale shade of peachy pink. She wore a blue dress that covered her from neck to wrist to ankle, but it fit her perfectly, and she looked lovely.

               Hiccup blinked, and the image vanished, but he remembered it.

               “I saw you,” he repeated.


	5. Chapter 5

 

              It’s strange. Hiccup moved out to be on his own and found himself living in a house with a ghost-woman. Even though she mostly kept to herself, Hiccup noticed her follow him from room to room once in a while. She never went into his office, at least not very far. He suspected the technology he’d crammed into the space freaked her out.

               Hiccup made a half of a pot of coffee and warmed up the remains of the day before in the microwave. He’d drank plenty of day-old coffee and never had a problem. Why change things?

               He took his coffee into his office, but not before glancing up the stairs. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

               Hiccup sat down and turned the computer on. He sipped his coffee while it booted, and kept his eyes on the stairs that he could see. He waited for the air to simmer, for the stairs to give in underneath a ghostly weight, anything, but nothing happened.

               She might be sleeping, if ghosts slept at all.

               He checked his email first and promptly deleted the junk. Heather had sent him a reminder about that first chapter.

               “It’s on my list,” he mumbled to his coffee. It was, too.

               Another email alerted him to a post made on his topic by HesaCow45. Hiccup clicked on the link.

               HesaCow45 had been a member of the site since the first year of its life. Hiccup knew little to nothing about the person behind the screen name. Hiccup assumed it a man by the way he spoke. HesaCow45 knew more about the paranormal and history pf the paranormal than anyone else Hiccup had known. He’d spent hours in private chats with him, hiding his laptop under the sheets, sometimes until three and four on school nights.

He lived outside the United States, he suspected, but Hiccup never asked. He knew books and names that Hiccup had spent hours researching in the school and public libraries. Hiccup never asked how he knew what he knew. A part of him didn’t want to know.

The response read:

              

_You had a trans-time crossing? That’s impressive. They say it’s similar to an out-of-body experience, but not quite. Personally, I’ve never met anyone who’s experienced it. Little study has been done because it so rarely occurs. In the early years before World War II, rumors say that Hitler commissioned paranormal enthusiasts and “witches” to try and cross through time, but no reports exist of it._

_They suspect, though this is mild speculation combined with common theory, that the trans-time crossing occurs when there is a strong emotional bond pulling a spirit through time. I don’t know to what extent that emotional bond needs to be. No one does. If you’ve got the time, I would like to talk more about it with you. PM me._

 

               Hiccup typed up a response and posted into the text box. His mouse hovered over the post icon, but he reconsidered. He moved it into a private message. He didn’t want the world knowing what had happened, not yet. He’d save it for the book. He had enough finger-pointers calling him insane as it was.

               With it being a private message, Hiccup added more details of his experience.

               Hiccup sipped his coffee. Cold.

               He swallowed it anyway and stood up to warm the rest. He set it inside the microwave, hit the thirty second button, and paced while it heated. The timer went off and he reached for the handle – but it vanished.

               Hiccup’s hand landed flat on the countertop. The microwave had gone. The fridge was gone. His coffee pot was gone. He whirled around.

               He’d done it.

               He’d gone back.

               The air felt stale and still, off, like he’d walked into an old photograph.

               Only this time, he heard things, muffled things, like he held earmuffs over his ears and pressed them against his head. Hiccup walked out of the kitchen and into the hall, and back into his office, or the room that would become his office.

               A man sat at a desk much grander than Hiccup’s, a desk worthy of Sherlock Holmes. The shelves were filled with proud tomes and hefty books. Light shone through the window. The curtains had been drawn back.

               The man at the desk looked familiar. Hiccup knew he’d seen his face somewhere in his research of the Hofferson House. He wouldn’t forget his face this time, not after seeing him at the desk. It wasn’t the same man he’d seen sitting at the table.

               Hofferson House had been built by brothers. The Hofferson brothers. Randal and Jacob. Which was which?  

               The man at the desk looked up, crease between his brows, frowning. Hiccup jumped. The man’s blue eyes went right through him, or, as Hiccup feared, _at_ him.

               And then, another strange thing occurred. A man walked into the office, _through_ Hiccup, as if he hadn’t been standing there at all. Hiccup threw a hand against his chest, where his heart beat like mad.

               Hiccup stepped to the side and out of the way should someone else come into the room.

               The man that had walked through him was the man he’d seen sitting at the table. The other brother.

               Which brother was Astrid’s father?

               They spoke, but though their lips moved, Hiccup didn’t hear them speak. It sounded like something, but not words.

               The brother that had walked inside brandished a letter from his breast pocket and waved it at the brother sitting at the desk. Neither looked happy. He threw the letter down on the desk, and Hiccup jogged over to read it over the other brother’s shoulder.

               The date in the corner read March 3, 1861. A month before the Civil War officially started. Things had been heating up in the country, as before any war, and these two brothers obvious felt the tension rising to the point of breaking.

               He wanted to know what they said. He could learn more about the timeframe in which Astrid had grown up, the war itself, and about the people who had built this house.

               Someone knocked on the front door. Hiccup turned, but neither man made a move. They continued to talk as if nothing had happened. The visitor knocked again.

               “Are you not going to get that?” Hiccup asked aloud, though no one answered.

               Hiccup glanced at the front door. It was the same front door that he’d opened. He took a step toward it, then another, and as he crossed the threshold from the study to the hall, the world flash bright; the men vanished. The grand desk reverted to his. His books lined the shelves. His computer had gone to sleep. From the kitchen, the microwave beeped to remind him that his coffee had been warmed.

               Someone knocked on the front door, quicker this time.

               “Coming,” Hiccup called out, and jogged the rest of the way to the door.

               Fishlegs stood on the other side, giddy and barely holding it all in.

               “Fishlegs,” Hiccup said, stepping aside to let him in. “You got here fast. How fast were you driving?”

               Fishlegs walked a short circle around the entranceway, and then turned to Hiccup and said, “What do you mean? It’s been enough time.”

               Hiccup pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the time. “Oh…wow you’re right. I-I must have lost track of time.”

               “Hiccup, are you okay?”

               “Yeah.”

               “Did something happen?” Fishlegs asked, concern melting into excitement.

               “Kind of,” Hiccup said.

               “Tell me all about it,” Fishlegs said, giddy in full. “Everything”

               “Okay, okay, but after a cup of coffee.”

               “Agreed.”

              

X

 

               Coffee drank, Hiccup gave Fishlegs a tour of the place, highlighting the places mentioned in the paranormal reports, those he’d set up to be monitored by camera, and those spaces he hadn’t decided what to do with yet, like the attic and other bedroom.

               “There’s also the guest room option,” Fishlegs said. “People are always willing to pay more to stay in a haunted house.”

               “I don’t want weird strangers staying in my house,” Hiccup said. It was true. He loved the paranormal field, but it attracted some strange people.

               “What’s this door?”

               “That’s Astrid’s room,” Hiccup said, and before Fishlegs could open it or ask, he added, “We decided that we would each have a private space that the other would not intrude upon. Hers is her bedroom. Mine is the master bathroom.”

               “She gets a whole bedroom and you get a bathroom?”

               He blushed, and laughed as he told Fishlegs the story of the open door. He giggled.  He glanced over at Astrid’s closed door. Hiccup knew what Fishlegs was thinking. He wanted to go in, but he respected Astrid’s wishes. He respected her space. He and Hiccup had heard too many tales about those who had disrespected a ghost. Things flew off shelves, usually at the offender, blankets were yanked off beds, dates scared – all manner of poltergeist behavior.

               Not all poltergeists started out that way, but people often pushed the spirit into an anger-fueled rage.

               “We should make a new vlog about the place, get some pre-buzz going for your next book,” Fishlegs said as he stared back down the stairs. “I’ve got some ideas. We could use some audio from those EVPs, phase them into the background, like an intro and then again in the outro, give it a real haunted house vibe.”

               Hiccup turned to follow Fishlegs down the stairs, when he saw it. It came from the corner of his eye. A shift in his vision. He glanced toward Astrid’s door. In front of it stood a fuzzy gray-white shadow.

               “Astrid?” Hiccup whispered. “Don’t mind Fishlegs, he’s get really excited about this sort of thing. If he makes you uncomfortable in any way, just let me know, I’ll talk to him.”

               The air shifted, and Astrid vanished through her bedroom door.

 

X

 

               Hiccup offered Fishlegs one of the upstairs rooms for the night, and he graciously accepted. Like many ghost nerds, he salivated at the idea of sleeping in a haunted house. While Fishlegs washed up in the master bath, because Hiccup hadn’t gotten around to cleaning or fixing the second bathroom, Hiccup sat down to work on that first chapter he’d promised Heather.

               He came up with a title, simply, “The Hofferson House.” Admittedly, he hated making up titles.

               He inserted page numbers to the document, his name, and the title. And then…stared at the blinking cursor.

               Where to start? With him buying the house? With him hearing about the house? Or a spookier opening of him meeting Astrid for the first time?

               Hiccup sighed and slouched over, elbows on the desk. Normally, writing came easily for him. He’d written his second book in about three days. The first draft, anyway. He hadn’t slept much in those three days, or eaten, or anything else besides write. Heather helped with most of the editing stuff.

               Astrid. His mind kept returning to Astrid. She was the main attraction in the house, the wayward soul of a young woman. How could he possibly put her into words? She wasn’t like the other ghosts. She was…something else.

               Hiccup heard a gentle sound from the other side of the living room. A step, maybe, or a memory of a step. He’d been hearing more and more residual type hauntings. Footsteps. Doors closing.

               When a ghost responded, the hauntings always picked up. Every time. He didn’t know why, but they did. He didn’t mind. No other spirits had joined them, and he didn’t want them to. He wanted to focus on Astrid.

               Hiccup returned to the screen. He typed several different openings, but he kept returning to Astrid’s name.

               Movement by the stairs caught his eye. He glanced up, but saw nothing.

               A moment later, movement came by the foot of the stairs. He saw nothing.

               Hiccup clicked out the document and into the camera feed. He’d spied Astrid walking a few times; on camera, the light shifted ever so slightly around her, a mild distortion that he’d learned to see.

               He didn’t see her on any of the cameras, however, she could have been in her room. He might be seeing a residual ghost of her coming down the stairs.

               Movement on the stairs.

               Hiccup glanced up, and this time, the creaks of the stairs accompanied the movement. A white-gray shadow, a distortion of the air, gently came down the stairs. Hiccup forgot the computer and watched.

               It’s Astrid, he knew.

               Even as a ghost, she walked with the grace of a lady rarely seen in the modern world. Had she learned to walk with books teetering on her head?

               Astrid hesitated in the doorway to the office.

               “It’s all the technology, isn’t it?” Hiccup said.

               She gave no semblance of an answer.

               “I know it’s probably strange to see all this,” he said. “It’s my work. This is what I do for a living. It’s not a high-class job, but I enjoy it. I-I’m trying to write.” Hiccup pointed toward the shelve where his previous books sat. “I’ve written books about helping people like you move on.”

               Astrid slowly came into the office and to the books. An arm, maybe, reached up. He imagined her running a graceful, slender finger down the spine.

               “I write because I enjoy it, and because I want other people to see that ghosts aren’t bad or scary. They’re just people with a different kind of problem.”

               Astrid faded in and out of his sight, but he knew she lingered in the room. She glided to the corner, to the old chair that had come with the house, that had probably sat in one of the rooms when she’d been alive, and stayed there.

               Hiccup didn’t have to keep glancing in her direction to know; he could feel the electric buzz her ghost brought to the air.

               He started to write. He started with Astrid, the lovely young woman ripped prematurely from life, supposedly by suicide, although she doesn’t remember dying.

               It was a strange comfort to write with her in the room. He didn’t feel compelled to check the cameras or listen for her movement. He knew if he glanced to the left, he’d see her. His ears didn’t perk up at every ‘haunted house’ sound. Her company felt nice, too.

               In what felt like no time at all, he emailed the first chapter to Heather.

               “And, done,” Hiccup said, mostly to Astrid, and leaned back in his chair.

               “What’s done?” Fishlegs asked as he came down the stairs in his pajamas; his wore a shirt with their logo on it.

               “Oh, I finished my first chapter,” Hiccup said. “I sent just it to Heather.”

               Fishlegs’s face when a bright pink. “Right, Heather…are you going to see her anytime soon?”

               “I saw her a few days ago. I won’t go in until she calls.”

               “Oh,” Fishlegs said. His entire body seemed to slump.

               “But, I’m sure she’d love to see the house first hand,” Hiccup said, gesturing to the house.

               “Yeah, I bet she would,” Fishlegs said.

               Hiccup wanted to laugh, but kept from it. Fishlegs had it bad for Heather, had ever since they’d first met at the launch party for his second book. From what Hiccup gathered, they kept in touch via email and the occasional phone call. They both led busy lives and didn’t have the time to spare for an afternoon date.

               “Anyway, I’m off to bed,” Fishlegs said. “See you in the morning!”

               “Night,” Hiccup said.

               He listened to Fishlegs’s steps up the stairs, to each creak they made. Astrid’s ghostly steps had made almost identical sounds, but not as heavy. Fishlegs walked down the hall and to the newly appointed guest room, and closed the door.

               Hiccup saved his files, shut down his computer, and headed to bed himself. After making sure to close the bathroom door, he showered. He’d brought his pajamas in with him to prevent any awkward encounters.

               Hiccup left his bedroom door open; he always had. He crawled underneath his blankets with a sense of exhaustion he hadn’t felt ten minutes before, and laid on his back. Despite his exhaustion, he found trouble sleeping.

               Hiccup closed his eyes and hung his arm over them. The pressure felt good. An aftereffect of staring at a too-bright computer screen in a too-dark office.

               Halfway into the daze of sleep, a pressure on the bed brought him back to consciousness.

               Someone had sat down on the bed, he was sure of it. He kept his arm over his eyes, and listened. Between his heartbeat and the blood gushing through his ears, the blankets rustled. 

               He felt the difference in the air. Like just before a lightning strike.

               Had she?

               Hiccup lifted his arm from his eyes. They’d adjusted to the night time light. His room appeared in dark blues. He turned his head to the side of the bed from which he’d heard and felt another person, but he didn’t see anyone.

               He whispered, “Are you here?”

               No one answered, but he didn’t need her to answer. He knew.

               She brought the same sense of comfort she had in the office. With her there, he didn’t have to worry about a ghost wandering the halls at night. With her there, he could sleep sound. And he did.

 

X

 

               Hiccup rolled over in the morning to a dull, overcast sky.

               Had the weather called for rain?

               Sitting up, the world became clear; he no longer sat in his bed in his room. His sparse decorations had been replaced by dainty antiques and pictures of people he didn’t know. People rustled downstairs. Voices talked, male and female. Outside, thunder rolled, low and threatening.

He’d somehow done it again. He was having a trans-time crossing. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going through these chapters that I've finished to post on here, and it's strange to read my pre-chapter comments each time. It's like a timeline, you know? I can remember writing each one of those, and yet it's been months ago. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for making it this far - hope you're enjoying this story!

 

               Hiccup woke up to a grayed ceiling. He blinked several times before it become clear; he’d crossed time. Again.

               For a while, he laid there, still, afraid that if he moved, he might shake the crossing’s effects. He sat up. Nothing changed. The Hofferson’s decorations patterned the walls and the old paint, crown molding, and paintings made the house look like an exhibit instead of a house. It might have been cozy under different circumstances.

               Hiccup slung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet touched the hardwood floor. He walked into the hall and toward the stairs.

               Something in the house felt different, sadder, somehow. Grayer, somehow.

               Thunder struck, and Hiccup jumped. Outside, a storm boiled. Halfway down the stairs, the rain began to strike the windows. It rained harder with each step he took to the first floor.

               He heard voices below the storm. He found the Hofferson family in the living room, or the sitting room, as they would have called it.

               The Hofferson brothers were standing in the kitchen in their Union Army uniforms. Hiccup recognized them from the historical documents.

               Names…he knew their names, too…Randal and Jacob. Randal married Ingrid; he’d been Astrid’s father. Randal’s son, Astrid’s older brother, Willie, stood beside his mother.

               Willie would leave and join the army without his father’s permission, but not for another year.

               Mrs. Hofferson, Ingrid, held onto the hand of a young blonde girl, Astrid, he assumed, who would not have been older than six.

               Hiccup watched Randal Hofferson set his hands on his son’s shoulders. He spoke; the words low and garbled as if the volume was turned too low. Willie nodded and held his chin out. Randal held his hand out, shook his son’s hand, and then pulled him into an embrace. Jacob laughed, but then hugged Willie, too.

               Randal kissed his wife on the lips and his daughter on the forehead. He ruffled Astrid’s hair. Jacob hugged both Ingrid and Astrid, and then the two men walk down the hallway in which Hiccup stood. He held his ground and shuttered as the two men walked right through him, as if he was made of air.

               Even in his ghost hunting, he’d never experienced something as unsettling. At least not in the same way. It felt as though he’d walked through a dense fog bank, cold and grim.

               Hiccup opened his eyes; Ingrid, Willie, and Astrid moved to watch the two men leave. Astrid pointed after her father with a little finger. A crease formed between her smooth brows. Her face scrunched up in innocent confusion.

               Ingrid bent down, laughing, although her humor did not conceal her worry. She said something to Astrid in the same low-volume way. Astrid shook her finger and her head and pointed adamantly.

               Ingrid’s gaze followed her daughter’s finger. She frowned.

               That was when Hiccup realized that Ingrid and Astrid were not looking at the same thing. Ingrid, as Willie, looked passed him. Astrid looked at him. _Directly_ at him.

               Ingrid stood. Willie spoke, gesturing to his sister, and frowned. Ingrid shushed him with a hand. Astrid gripped her mother’s skirt with one hand and held her pointed finger at Hiccup. Her frown deepened. Her blue eyes bore into his.

               Something gripped his chest, something he’d never felt before.

               Astrid could see him. She saw him. Why couldn’t her mother? Why not her brother? Was it because he’d made contact with her ghost? But…how could a meeting nearly one hundred and fifty years in the future impact the past? Of course, he’d traveled back in time for no apparent reason.

When ghosts were concerned, science, logic, and reason no longer mattered.

Hiccup blinked, and suddenly the three Hoffersons vanished from his kitchen. It became his kitchen once more.

“Hiccup?” Fishlegs asked warily. He stood by the table, eyes wide and staring at Hiccup.

“Yeah?” Hiccup asked. He still felt frozen.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, why?”

“Just now…” Fishlegs said, pointing at Hiccup. He motioned toward the doorway. “You walked in here like you were in a daze or sleepwalking; it was weird. I kept trying to talk to you but you weren’t listening. Could you hear me?”

Hiccup felt the nervous worry bubble in his throat. Had he started to lose his mind? He said, “No, I couldn’t.”

“What happened?” Fishlegs asked. “Was it a seizure? I’ve read about those. It’s like you’re in a daze. Some kind of fit where your brain is working but it’s not talking to your body properly.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Hiccup said. He leaned against the countertop. “That’s not it.”

“Hiccup?” Fishlegs said cautiously.

“Fishlegs, if I tell you something, promise me you won’t say a word to anyone. Not Heather, not the internet, not even to you journal. No one.”

Fishlegs’s curiosity turned grave. He nodded, and said, “Okay. I promise. Not a soul will hear it from me. Alive or not.”

“I-I…I’ve been having these dreams, I think,” Hiccup said, using his hands to demonstrate what he couldn’t explain. “I think it’s one of those trans-time crossings. I’ll suddenly be back in time, when the Hoffersons were still living here. I just watched the two bothers leave for the war.”

Fishlegs was speechless. His mouth gapped and his eyebrows nearly vanished into his hairline. After a long moment, he fumbled backward and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs.

“Fishlegs?”

“Do you realize how big this is?” Fishlegs asked. “No one has reported one of these experiences in decades. No one’s been able to prove these things even happen. But…if you talk about them…Hiccup, there’ll be no doubt that these experiences are real.”

“There’ll be a lot of doubt,” Hiccup said. “But I don’t want to tell anyone about it. Not yet. Plenty of people already think I’m out of my mind as it is. I’d rather not give them any more ammo.”

“Right,” Fishlegs said. He whistled a nervous tune, and then clapped his hands together. “So, like I was saying while you were…elsewhere, I was thinking of going into town for some dinner preparations.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe some chicken or steak, some mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. You don’t have much in the way of food.”

Hiccup shrugged, and said, “Isn’t mint chocolate chip Heather’s favorite?”

Fishlegs blushed, and said a pitcher higher, “I-it might be.”

Hiccup laughed. “Sounds good. You two are the foodies. Surprise me.”

“Great, I’ve, uh, already called Heather to let her know. She knows you know, so it’s cool,” Fishlegs said, anticipation showing; he couldn’t stop smiling. He took steps to the door. “Okay, so, I’ll be back before dinner.”

               Fishlegs went out the front, and Hiccup stood in the kitchen. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d broken out in a cold sweat. It lingered on his skin and sent a chill to his bones. He warmed up a day-old cup of coffee before making a new pot. He stood in the kitchen, sipping the old coffee, while the aroma of the new pot filled the kitchen.

               Astrid had seen him. What did that mean?

               Hiccup tidied up the house, although it didn’t really need it. He didn’t have much clutter. Most of his cleaning involved dusting and dishes, neither one did he particularly hate. They were mindless tasks, and he could get plenty of thinking time in while he did them.

Hiccup walked into the main hall, toward the kitchen, and stopped cold by the foot of the stairs. At the top, he saw her.

Astrid stood on the second floor, leaning against the railing. She seemed to be looking out of the stained-glass window above the front door. He could see her more clearly; she still looked gray-white and transparent, but he could see the shape of her dress and her arms. He could see where the dress came to her pale neck, and where the sleeves ended on her wrists. He could see the buttons on the front of it, from her waist to her neck.  He could see the small ruffle at her neck.

Astrid blinked; her eyes shifted downward to where he stood, and another chill, stronger than the other, ran up and down his spine. Her eyes did not look blue. They appeared solid white and gray, darker than the rest of her.

“Astrid?” Hiccup asked.

She straightened up, poised herself like a lady in a portrait. She started toward the stairs. Hiccup watched her descend the stairs, one at a time, ghostly hand on the rail. Her legs moved within her dress, although she appeared to glide.

He’d never seen anything so terrifying and beautiful. How was he supposed to put _that_ into written words? How was he supposed to convey the wonder he felt at the sight of her?

She came to a stop a few feet from him. She held her hands in front of her, like a lady. Her hair was not done up, but braided over her shoulder.

The image of her that he’d had…she’d looked much like her ghost.

Six-year-old-Astrid’s eyes poked the front of his mind.

“I can see you,” he said.

She put a ghostly hand against her chest. Her lips appeared to move, although no sound came out.

“Yes, you,” Hiccup said, not entirely sure if that had been her question. “I can see you. Not the clearest, but I can see you. You’ve braided your hair.”

He motioned to her hair, and both of her hands reached up to grab hold of her braid. She smiled.

Hiccup didn’t mention the trans-time crossing. For some reason, it didn’t feel right. It felt like something from a time-traveling novel; he might mess up the future or the past or something, and make it so that he’d never been born. He’d rather avoid that problem entirely.

Instead, Hiccup spent the rest of his time cleaning talking with Astrid. She followed him from room to room, listening as he told her about Fishlegs and Heather, his books, and his past attempts to push his two friends together.

“It’s obvious they’re crazy about each other,” Hiccup was saying as he washed the rest of the dishes. Astrid sat at the table. “But neither one is willing to make the first move. I know, it’s one of those nervous things that could mess up everything, but if they don’t try, they’ll never know. And Fishlegs is always telling me to not let good things pass me by.

“Hopefully, I can give them enough alone time for them to remember why they like each other. They haven’t seen each other in person a lot lately, with Heather and her editor’s job and Fishlegs busy with the tech side of things. They’re both so busy they’re missing each other.”

Hiccup stacked the last clean dish into the dish drainer.

Astrid had leaned forward on the table, chin in her hands.

Hiccup sighed, and spied his cleaned house. Well, their house, relatively. He said, “Thanks for listening, Astrid. I appreciate it.”

She smiled, and he knew she’d say _you’re welcome_ if she could. 

 

X

 

               Dinner with Heather went great; they talked about ghosts, the Hofferson house, and a few other projects in the paranormal book world that Heather had gotten her hands on. She’d found a paranormal romance writer from Louisiana who wrote with a ‘Cajun twist,’ as she called it.

               “How does one write with a Cajun twist?” Hiccup asked.

               “It’s kind of like…” Heather chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. “It’s like she’s sprinkling red pepper flakes in her words. It’s spicy, but not too spicy that all you’re getting is heat. There’s plenty of flavor. Don’t worry, Hiccup, I’m sending an advance reader’s copy to you for a blurb.”

               “I’ll be sure to find a nice spice to flavor it with,” Hiccup said. “How do you feel about rosemary?”

               Heather laughed. She sat closer to Fishlegs than she did to Hiccup, which suited him fine.

               Fishlegs changed the subject; Hiccup let his thoughts drift away. He sipped his wine as they talked. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Astrid had looked at him that morning, during his…experience in to the past. He had no other word than ‘experience.’

               Astrid had look at him, he didn’t doubt it. She could see him, and yet her mother couldn’t. Her bother couldn’t. Her father and her uncle had walked through him without a glint of recognition that a strange man stood in their way.

               He knew, somehow, that it had everything to do with Astrid’s ghost. He’d somehow become a ghost to her, although he knew any explanation as to why or how would never be found. Those types of answers didn’t rely on science.

               Heather let out a girlish giggle; her face had gone a light shade of pink. The conversation between her and Fishlegs had hit a snag, it seemed.

               Hiccup cleared his throat, and said, “I’ve got to visit the bathroom. I’ll be back.”

               Standing, he took his wine with him, a subtle indicator that meant he would be longer than the standard bathroom-time. No one objected, and so he trotted up the stairs. at the top, he took a sip of the wine. He went straight into his bedroom, and into the master bath.

               He set the wine down on the counter top and stared into the mirror. He looked tired. He felt tired, too. Distracted. Scatter-brained. Weak-kneed. He couldn’t stop thinking about Astrid’s look. None of it made sense. He’d been in plenty of haunted houses, met plenty of lingering spirits, and experienced all manner of paranormal activity, and yet he’d never had such a thing as a trans-time crossing. Not once.

               What made this time any different?

               He washed his face in cold water and finished the wine in a few gulps. He washed the glass out in the sink and set it on the counter.

               Hiccup meandered back into the bedroom and into the hallway. His plan was to visit the balcony and get some fresh air, but something stopped him before he got there.

               Astrid’s bedroom door stood open.

               Had it been open?

               Then he realized; somewhere between his bedroom and the hallway, he’d left his own time.

               Astrid, maybe seven or eight, sat at her vanity. Her long blonde hair streamed over her shoulders as she ran a comb through it. She hummed; he thought he could hear a gentle sound of a young girl’s voice, but it also sounded strangely like static, or rain. Was it still raining?

               Astrid looked up into the mirror. Her blue eyes shifted suddenly.

               Hiccup couldn’t move. He saw himself in her mirror. He met her gaze, and he watched the color drain from her face.

               Astrid dropped her comb and spun sharply on her stool. Her face twisted with determination and fearlessness. Again, their eyes met, but as soon as they did, the crossing ended.

               For a moment, Hiccup was unsure of his location. Then, realization came. He was lying on the floor, across the threshold into Astrid’s bedroom. He saw the legs of the vanity stool underneath the bed.

               Had he fallen? When? He didn’t remember.

               Slowly, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. His body felt like it had gone through the taffy puller. He sat back on his feet.

               Astrid appeared. Her ghost knelt in front of him, worry painted across her ghostly face. Her entire being seemed to glow as if made of shimmering smoke.

               Her eyes. They were no longer pure white; within the pale cloudiness, he could see rings of color. They were not the vibrant blue of her living eyes, but the subtle change stirred a fear inside of him.

               “I see you,” Hiccup said to her. “I can see you better now.”

               The worry eased on her face, but did not leave.

               “Why is that?”

               She shook her head.

               Hiccup stood on shaky legs. He used the doorway to balance, and then lumbered into the hallway.

               Astrid followed him into his bedroom. She walked past him and patted his bed. Hiccup obliged. Maybe a nap would do him some good.

               He laid down in his clothes and pushed off his shoes. He laid down across the blankets.

               A cold hand against his forehead made him jump. Astrid leaned over him, hand against his skin. Against her touch, he felt how hot his skin had become.

               Was this the reason no one spoke about trans-time crossings? It felt like he was slowing going insane. Maybe he was. He could have gotten some mild possession in all those ghost hunting adventures. It was possible his brain couldn’t function properly or distinguish between reality and not, and he’d started hallucinating.

               Astrid sat on the bedside. Her presence brought nothing of distrust or malice. Within her watchful presence, he felt asleep quickly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...forgive the wonky formatting. I've still getting used to this site's way of posting. :-)

 

               Hiccup rolled over and felt a strange pillow touch his cheek. It smelled of someone else, not of himself. Sitting up, it became apparent that he was no longer in his own bed, or in his house, but in the house that belonged to the Hofferson’s.

               He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. What time was it? His phone no longer sat on the bedside, nor was his red-faced alarm clock there to tell him. No sunshine came from outside. In the absence of the humming air conditioner, crickets and frogs were singing.

               From the way his body longed to remain in bed, he knew it must have been after midnight, but before three – after three, his body would have refused to return to sleep.

               Hiccup sighed. Why now? Why this point in history? Why couldn’t the powers that be have let him sleep until morning?

               Someone sighed – a feminine someone – from his other side. Startled, Hiccup threw his attention in the direction.

               Mrs. Hofferson slept in the bed beside him, hair tucked into a sleeping cap.

               Hiccup blinked at her, but his presence didn’t seem to bother her at all, not even as he ruffled the covers on his way out of the bed. She let out a small sigh, asleep, and stayed that way.

               Hiccup, now standing beside the bed fully awake, went to the window and peered out from between the curtains. As he suspected, nighttime. The stars were out like he’d seen only in the deserted countryside; the moon shone bright, silvery light over the dark green-blue world.

               A small sound, a floor board’s careful creak, came from downstairs. Hiccup walked silently across the floor; he didn’t think Mrs. Hofferson could see or hear him, but he didn’t want to take the chance. Hiccup slipped out of the master bedroom just in time to see a blonde head slip from the last stair and head toward the kitchen.

               Astrid?

               Hiccup followed. He tiptoed down the stairs and down the hallway toward the kitchen.

               Astrid stood in the doorway. Her brother, Willie, had been caught sneaking out the backdoor. He carried a knapsack over his shoulder. For a moment, neither brother or sister said anything. Then, Willie’s lips moved, but Hiccup heard only a muffled blur of a sound. Astrid spoke after him, her blurry words several pitches higher.

               Hiccup didn’t have to hear their words to know what he’d walked into. Willie, a few months after his father and uncle left to join the Union Army, also left to join the army; he, unlike his father and uncle, wouldn’t come back.

               Hiccup felt a tightening in his chest as he witnessed the last moment Astrid would see of her bother. It gripped his chest with a desire to grab Willie by the arm and tell him what would happen, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t change what had happened.

               Willie set his knapsack down and bent to hug Astrid. With a quick goodbye, he slipped out the backdoor and into the night, never to return.

               Astrid, crestfallen, turned around. She took half a step and then paused; the color drained from her face and her eyes widened.

               She’d spotted Hiccup; she looked right at him.

               Hiccup pointed to himself, and asked the still air, “Can you see me?”

               Before Astrid could answer, the crossing ended and he stood once again in his kitchen, in his house, with the smell of dinner still lingering in the air. Hiccup’s heart pounded in his chest.

               Heather’s charmed laughter rang from the front porch. Fishlegs and she were sitting on the steps outside.

               Hiccup checked the time as said by the coffeepot’s tiny numbers. Twenty after midnight.

               “Shit,” Hiccup groaned into his hand. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. Well, maybe not a truck, but a small car at least.

               For something to do, Hiccup started to clean the last of the dinner dishes. Even with the mindless action, he couldn’t think straight. What was happening?

               The front door opened, and Heather’s voice drifted inside, “Thanks for the invite, Hiccup. I’ll be seeing you. Oh, and don’t forget that book you’re supposed to be writing. I want an update on your progress.”

               “Okay,” Hiccup said, only half aware of what she said.      

               Heather lingered in the door, but closed it. Hiccup heard her voice and Fishlegs’s drift down the drive. Heather’s car started and the headlights brightened the living room windows as she pulled out. Hiccup set the last dish into the drainer as Fishlegs came back inside. He let out a delighted sigh as he shut the door behind him.

               “I take it went well?” Hiccup asked.

               “We’ve made plans to see each other again,” Fishlegs said. “Not this weekend; she’s got a thing and I’ve got plans, but next weekend we’re having dinner at her place.”

               “Her place?” Hiccup grinned.

               Fishlegs turned a bright shade of red. “Yes. Her place. She has a nice view of the city park.” He yawned. “Boy, it’s late. I’m hitting the hay. Night, Hiccup.”

               “Goodnight,” Hiccup said.

               He listened to Fishlegs trot up the stairs, humming to himself. He sat down at the table and rubbed his face. He hadn’t felt remotely tired when he’d woke up in the kitchen, but now he felt utterly exhausted. He waited a while in the kitchen, but no apparition appeared. Hiccup dragged himself up to his bedroom and fell back into bed – his bed, which he shared with no one.

 

X

 

               Fresh cup of coffee in hand, Hiccup sat down at his computer first thing the next morning. He opened his email and wrote about the crossings; he rewrote several sentences, unsure of how best to say what he wanted to say without making himself sound like he might be losing his mind. He told about each event in turn, as they had happened, and finished with the more recent one that previous evening.

               He hesitated to send it to his mysterious friend who went by the screen name HesaCow45. But who else would understand? He watched the blue line slowly make its way across the top of the email field, sending….sending…sent.

               Would HesaCow45 know more? He, or she, Hiccup didn’t know, seemed to know a lot about most paranormal things, old, new, or half-forgotten. He imagined HesaCow45 living in some European country, in the outskirts of town (he, or she, had mentioned sheep before), in an unassuming cottage; he, or she, would be sitting in an office piled with books, scrolls, and handwritten journals. HesaCow45 would have an older computer that worked like it was built by Nasa (he’d mentioned a friend, or rather, an ‘acquaintance’ that new a thing or two about computers). Hiccup imagined this ‘acquaintance’ as some hacker, living low from the authorities.

               Hiccup’s idea of HesaCow45 was based off his, or her, mysteriousness and profound knowledge of the paranormal and arcane. Most likely, as the way of the internet’s inflation, he was a middle-aged, overweight, balding dude living in a tailor park somewhere in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin, because he’d mentioned how good the cheese was at this little shop in town.)

               Whatever the case with HesaCow45, Hiccup was glad to have him on board the paranormal boat that was his online community.

               Hiccup eyeballed the website, mostly checking the forums, approving ‘suspended’ comments that had been caught in the spam filter or profanity filter, and updating his own status that appeared near the top of the page, mirrored by Fishlegs. He wrote a quick little line about the Hofferson house, hinting at a bestseller, and left it at that.

               Hiccup sighed, leaned back, and drank the rest of his cooling coffee. He got another, and returned to his computer.

               Time to do the deed: write.

               He opened his rough draft of his first chapter, gave it a one-over, and started on Chapter Two. Heather had suggested using an outline, but Hiccup had never found use for one.

               Should he mentioned the trans-time crossing?

               Somehow…he felt not. Not yet, anywhere. He’d be sending the chapter to Heather when finished, and he didn’t want her to know just yet. Of course, there’s the real possibility that Fishlegs had mentioned it.

               History. He should start with the history of the house.

               Hiccup opened the desk drawer and pulled out his notebook of notes for the house and he family, starting with the beginning when Randal and Jacob built it.

 

               _In 1848, brothers Randal and Jacob Hofferson arrived in New York City. As recent immigrants from Norway, the brothers were treated with skepticism and prejudice. They made their way across the United States to what is now_

 

               Hiccup’s fingers froze over the keys; something silvery caught his attention. It started at the top of the stairs, illuminated as a golden glow in the sunlight that poured from the window above the door.

               Astrid, glorious in her glow, made her way down the stairs. Hiccup stared, transfixed, at how clear she’d become. Her hair seemed a faint shade of yellow, while her dress glowed in more of a baby blue. The buttons that lined the front of her dress were dark blue. Her eyes…he could see them…where blue.

               At first, she didn’t appear to notice him. She stood for a moment in the foyer, eyes on the door, and then she casually glanced toward him.

               Noticing his stare, her entire posture changed. Her shoulders straightened; the slight slouch in her back vanished; she folded her graceful fingers together in front of her.

               “I saw you last night,” Hiccup said.

               She walked into the office. A crease formed in her brow.

               “You were younger,” Hiccup said. “I-I’m not sure how to explain it without sounding like I’ve lost my mind.”

               She made her way into the room and sat down in the chair in the corner. She motioned with her hand; her pale lips moved, but he didn’t hear anything.

               “I saw your brother leave,” he said.

               The crease between her brows deepened. She frowned. She seemed to be thinking. She placed a hand against her lips. Her lips then moved.

               “I can’t hear you.”

               She appeared to sigh.

               “I know. It would be a lot easier if I could,” he said. He tapped his fingers on his notes. “I saw your brother leaving. He left in the middle of the night. You caught him.”

               Astrid stood up and moved into the kitchen; Hiccup followed. She went to the backdoor. She pointed to the floor and mouthed the word, _Willie_.

               “Yes, he stood there,” Hiccup said.

               Astrid moved to where she had stood, pointed to herself, then to the floor. Then she walked to the threshold of the foyer, pointed at Hiccup, then to the floor.

               His heart fell into his socks.

               “Y-you…saw me?”

               She nodded.

               “You remember me?”

               She nodded again.

               Her piercing stare had seen him, and her ghost remembered it.

               “You remembering seeing me more than once?”

               She nodded. She reached for her hair.

               “I saw you brushing your hair,” Hiccup said.

               She nodded.

               Hiccup sat down. The world didn’t quite make sense anymore, and he considered his tolerance for insanity fairly high.

               “Did you…I mean, did you remember me before I’d moved in?”

               Astrid nodded.

               Hiccup rubbed his face vigorously in his hands. What did that mean? He didn’t understand. Had he messed up the timeline? Had he screwed up someone’s life by making it so they wouldn’t exist? Had Willie not gone, but because he’d interfered, had he gone? Had Hiccup sent Willie to die in the war?

               A cold, but soft, hand landed on his shoulder. Hiccup jumped.

               Astrid knelt down beside the chair with a warming, welcoming smile on her ghostly lips. Even dead, she looked beautiful.

               “I-I keep going back,” Hiccup confessed. “To when you and your family lived here. I keep seeing glimpses…I-I don’t know what it means. It’s never happened to me before.”

               Astrid’s hand squeezed. Her hand felt like a normal human hand, as alive as his own, but much sturdier and calm.

               “I keep thinking that I’ll find out what happened to you,” he said.

               Her eyes softened.

               “Have you remembered?”

               She shook her head.

               “Each time I go back…I can see you a little clearer,” he said.

               She touched his cheek, and a gentle roll rose in her shoulders. She even made a shrug look graceful.

               “I’ll find out,” Hiccup said, “I promise, Astrid. I’ll find out what happened to you. I’ll help you move on. Even if it kills me.”


	8. Chapter 8

 

              Hiccup woke early. The sunlight barely glowed through the curtains, a gray-blue, signaling that dawn had not yet completely broken. He didn’t move at first. It felt as though he’d been sleeping too much, and yet not enough. He blinked a few times, making sure that it was indeed his room he woke up in – it was – and slowly got out of bed. He meandered down to the coffee pot.

               Fishlegs snored lightly in the guest room.

               Hiccup fixed the pot and hit the ‘brew’ button; he poured the leftover coffee in a clean mug and warmed it in the microwave. Standing beside the microwave, waiting for the minute to pass, he stared out the kitchen window over the sink. The world slowly came to life as the sun inched closer and closer to his side of the world, warming the dew and the stars.

               To think, Astrid might have stared at the same view over one hundred and fifty years ago. Or…Hiccup quickly did the math in his head…one hundred and thirty-six years. Still, something in his gut told him the view hadn’t changed hardly at all.

               What would it be like to be trapped in a house for so long? Each day passing without company, without friends or family, without anyone that could see or talk to you; Hiccup considered himself introverted and he prioritized his private time, but he needed to talk to other people now and again, in person, not online and impersonally. And Astrid hadn’t been able to talk to anyone since her death. How terrible. It dropped a rock into his stomach to think about.

               His sympathy for those trapped in the between world had been one of the founding reasons he started his ghost hunting career. He wanted to help those that no one else could help. If he was the only one that could see or hear them, then he held the highest obligation to help them. To turn his back on people that he could clearly help would be a form of treason to humanity, cruelty – and he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself.

               As a child, he’d wanted to be a doctor for the same reason. He wanted to help people. He’d had the dream to have his own little walk-in clinic; it wasn’t fair that people couldn’t go to the doctor because their insurance cost them too much, or their deductible was too high. That dream, unfortunately, fizzled out when he discovered his squeamishness and dislike of hospitals and the extreme neediness of some people.

               The microwave beeped, and Hiccup turned around. He reached for the handle of the door, but his hand never reached it. Instead, the microwave vanished. In its place was an open tin of ointment. Beside it, bandages.

               His stomach dropped out at the smell: blood, alcohol, and human stick.

               He stood in the Hofferson’s house, he knew, but he didn’t want to turn around. From the sounds that came from the kitchen right behind him, someone was in pain – bloody pain.

               “Hold still or you’ll make it worse,” said Mrs. Hofferson.

               “Just do it and get it over with!” said an older male, hoarse.

               Hiccup inhaled and turned; he turned in time to see Mrs. Hofferson remove a bloody bandage off a middle-aged man’s thigh. Blood had congealed and mixed with puss; Hiccup gagged. Infection. He fell back against the countertop and held on. What would happen if he passed out in the past? Would his vomit stay in the past or travel back to his own kitchen?

               Mrs. Hofferson dabbed the wound with a cloth doused in something sharp-smelling and then reached for a tin of ointment similar to the one on the counter.

               “Drat, we’re nearly out,” Mrs. Hofferson said, tossing the empty tin aside. “Astrid, grab the one from the counter.”

               Astrid appeared; she’d been standing out of the way. She might have been nine years old, give or take – Hiccup was horrible with ages. She reached through Hiccup as if he hadn’t been standing there and handed the second tin to her mother.

               Mrs. Hofferson smoothed a healthy dose of it onto the strange man’s leg.

               “We’ll not wrap it for a while, that wound needs to breath,” she said firmly.

               Mrs. Hofferson stood. Her hair had been pinned back, but strands of it had fallen about her face. She looked frazzled; her dress was stained and wrinkled and bags hung under her eyes. The man laid on a cot; he wore a union uniform.

               Mrs. Hofferson washed her hands in the sink and mumbled, “This war won’t leave anyone left to fight.”

               Astrid stood to the side, ashen-faced.

               “Astrid, go find that boy and tell him his father will be fine,” Mrs. Hofferson said. “He can come in now if he wants.”

               Without a word, Astrid set off for the front of the house. Hiccup followed; he wanted far away from the hospital scene. Astrid ran outside to the porch where a young boy, maybe ten years old, sat sulking.

               “Mother says your father will be alright,” Astrid said.

               “That’s what they said about my mother, too,” said the boy. “She died a week later.”

               “Well, if your mother had been in my mother’s care, she would have told you the truth,” Astrid said matter-of-factly.

               The boy didn’t say anything for a while. Astrid, seemingly keen on the impact of her words and tension in the air, sat down beside the boy.

               “If my father dies, I’ll be orphaned,” said the boy. “They’ll send me off to that horrible place, that orphanage. I’ve seen that mistress there beating the children in the yard. Everyone’s seen it, but no one does anything.”

               “Do you have any other family?” Astrid asked.

               “I’ve got an uncle on my mother’s side, but he’s fighting for the south,” the boy said grimly. “Father says he’ll never welcome scum like that in his home again.”

               “Well…if…the worst happened,” Astrid said tentatively, “I’m sure Mother would let you stay here. It’s been lonely since everyone left for the war.”

               The boy looked sideways at Astrid. He said, “Why would she?”

               Astrid shrugged, and said, “She needs a man to chop the wood, she says. I can’t, and she doesn’t like to.”

               “I can chop wood like a man,” the boy said, puffing out his chest and pointing to himself. “Everyone says so.”

               “And sometimes, a snake will find its way into the kitchen,” Astrid said. “Mother hates them something terrible. I don’t like them either, and I wish someone else would have to pick them up.”

               “I’m not afraid of snakes,” said the boy, looking more delighted by the moment.

               “Then it’s settled,” Astrid said with the same affirmation as her mother, “You’ll stay here to chop would and pick up snakes.”

               Hiccup laughed; how sweet. In 2016, they’d never just let a stray boy stay at someone’s house. No, all the “officials” and do-gooders would want him put into the system, tossed about in foster care.

               Hiccup had learned enough about the foster system from Heather to know that it didn’t always work like they said it did. She had the scars to prove it, too.

               “Mother also said you can go in and see him, if you’d like,” Astrid said.

               The boy stood. “Might as well, I don’t want him to die thinking I don’t care about him.”

               Astrid and the boy went back into the house. Hiccup lingered a step behind them. When they entered the kitchen, Hiccup stood in the doorway so that he couldn’t see the sick man on the cot.

               “Eret, my boy, come here,” said the sick man.

               Hiccup leaned against the doorframe as the sick man began to talk; no sooner had the first words left his mouth, than the world shifted so suddenly that Hiccup missed it. In one blink, the kitchen returned to his own. The microwave let out a shrill beep.

               “Hiccup?” Fishlegs asked. He stood at the bottom of the stairs.

               “Yeah?” Hiccup asked. He walked to the microwave and tasted his coffee. Cold. He reset the timer for another minute.

               “Were you…just now…are you okay?”

               “Yeah, I’m fine,” Hiccup said. “I went back. I had another of those…trans-time things, but I’m okay. Why? Do I look like I’m slowly losing my mind?”

               He’d said it as a joke, but Fishlegs didn’t laugh.

               Fishlegs said, “A little bit, yeah.”

               Fishlegs worked on a few things for the website, mostly the technical side of things that Hiccup had never grasped. Fishlegs was a tech wizard; Hiccup would have an idea of what he wanted on the site, and in a few days – or weeks, depending on the request – Fishlegs would have it up and running.

               Hiccup took his notebook to the second floor balcony in the meantime to brainstorm about his book. He reclined in one of the old chairs and rested his socked feet on the railing. try as he might to think of chapter titles or colorful chapter endings, all he could think about was Astrid.

               How was he supposed to translate his desire to help her to people who’d never met her? She was…something else entirely. He’d never met a ghost who’d had such a hold over him before. He’d never felt such a need to help anyone else.

               She was taking over his thoughts.

               As if conjured by those ceaseless thoughts, a pale shimmer of the sunny air caught his attention. She didn’t appear as vibrant in the direct sunlight, but he could make out the shimmer she caused, the slight shift of the light. She sat down in the chair beside him, the same chair he’d seen her in after he’d first moved in.

               It felt like so long ago, but it hadn’t been but a week.

               She gestured to the notebook.

               “I’m brainstorming,” Hiccup said. He showed her what he’d done so far. “I’m trying to map out how I want this book to be, but…I’m not having much luck. I’m a little scatterbrained today.” He didn’t want to tell her it was because he kept thinking about her.

               She gestured to the house.

               “Yeah, it’s about the house,” Hiccup said. “I’m starting by introducing the house, your family, and you. I’ve got that part down. Then I’m going into how I found the place, my desire to buy it, and moving in. Then I’m going to go into all the paranormal activity I’ve had while living here, which will be different than the other houses I’ve done. I haven’t lived in any of those. I’ve just stayed a while, usually in the evening houses, which Heather, my editor, thinks will give this book a new spin.”

               Astrid might have smiled. It was hard to tell in the light.

               “So…I guess that would make three parts so far.”

               Astrid held up her hand, and Hiccup squinted; she held up four fingers.

               “The fourth part will be the last one,” Hiccup said. “It’s when I talk about how I helped the spirit move on and end on a bittersweet happy note. It doesn’t sound like a very long book, I know, but I’ll add details to each part and have chapters within. I’ve gotten more streamlined at writing a book. My first attempt was a mess. Without Heather, it would have been a flop.”

               Fishlegs walked through the house. Hiccup paused; he didn’t want to give Fishlegs any more thoughts about him losing his mind, although Fishlegs had seen him converse with plenty of spirits over the years. To see him talking yet again to himself shouldn’t stir any worry in Fishlegs, but he didn’t want to take the risk.

               Fishlegs had walked to the bathroom – the toilet flush resounded through the open windows.

               “I, uh, saw you again,” Hiccup confessed to Astrid. “I don’t know if you saw me or not. It was…in your kitchen. I don’t know how old you were. Your mother was tending to a soldier’s wounds.”

               Astrid nodded.

               “I’d not read that in any of the historical texts,” Hiccup said. “Did she help many soldiers?”

               Astrid nodded again.

               “The man had a boy with him, his son,” Hiccup said, thinking of the boy. “You told him that if his father died, he could stay here with you and your mother to chop wood and pick up snakes.”

               Astrid seemed to laugh; her mouth opened and her chest shook. She closed her mouth and nodded.

               “Did he…did his father live?”

               A downcast expression came over her face. She shook her head.

               “Oh,” Hiccup said. “Then the boy stayed? What was his name…Eric? No, Eret.”

               She nodded. She pointed to the house.

               “I guess he ended up chopping wood and clearing the snakes from the kitchen?”

               She smiled and nodded, although not too enthused about it.  

               “Was he…alright? I mean, a stranger living in your house couldn’t have been a comfort all the time.”

               She shrugged and leaned forward onto her knees, frowning, as if to say, _it’s complicated._

“Did he stay the duration of the war?”

               She nodded.

               “Did you father seem happy or dismayed that a boy was living in the house?”

               Astrid didn’t answer immediately, then she shook her head, and gestured to indicate that it might have been somewhere between both emotions.

               “Did Eret return home?”

               Astrid looked out over the yard and pointed toward town.

               “He…stayed around here? Got a job in town?”

               She nodded.

               “Oh, well, I suppose that’s not bad,” Hiccup said. “I’m glad it all worked out for him. I’ll add him into the book, if it’s alright with you, he’s another piece to the puzzle.”            

               Astrid didn’t seem to mind.

               “Can you remember his last name?”

               She shook her head.

               “It’s okay, the town wasn’t very big in those days,” Hiccup said. “If he paid taxes or owned property or committed a crime, he’ll be in the courthouse records. I’ll find him.”

               Noon rolled around. Fishlegs had updated the site and Hiccup had something of an outline for the book. They had a quick lunch (Fishlegs cooked) and then Fishlegs went into town, for what he didn’t say. Hiccup ventured into the study and took a look at the site. It looked the same, only with a few minor changes for ease of access. He’d modified the toolbar a bit.

               After checking it, Hiccup flopped his notebook down and ventured into the kitchen for his afternoon coffee. He reached pot, poured him a cup, and hadn’t brought it to his lips when the world shifted; for a moment his stomach lurched – would the cup fall into the floor? However, by the laws of the trans-time crossings, the cup had somehow followed him. He still held it. He tasted the coffee; nothing about it suggested it had been touched by anything abnormal or strange.

               Hiccup glanced about the Hofferson’s kitchen while sipping his coffee. The kitchen still smelled like a hospital, but less…antiseptic. Mrs. Hofferson bent over a man in a union uniform that didn’t look a day over seventeen. He’d gotten shot in left arm. Another man lay on another cot by the wall, asleep by the looks, with clean bandages around his head and his bare chest.

               A thump from outside drew Hiccup’s attention. Out back, the young Eret chopped wood. He seemed older than he had in the previous trans-time crossing. Of course, Hiccup didn’t know much time passed between each one. By the look of the soldiers, the war was still going on, which meant it couldn’t be after 1865. From the look of the trees and the countryside, winter was upon them. Snow still spotted the shadier places in the yard.

               Hiccup was looking at Eret effortlessly chop wood, and he didn’t hear the small footsteps approach until he glimpsed movement.

               Astrid, carrying a water jug, stood frozen and stiff in the kitchen doorway. She looked older than she had before, a few years maybe; her face had widened and her hair had grown longer; she stood taller.

               “You’re back?” she whispered.

               It took Hiccup a moment to realize she meant _him_.

               Hiccup opened his mouth to speak, but the world around him shifted again. The suddenness startled him; he sloshed his coffee onto the floor and down his jeans.

               “Shit,” Hiccup spat at the mess.

               The coffee quickly ran through the grout between the tiles. He set his mug in the sink and yanked the paper towels from the counter. As he dabbed, he glanced up at the doorway in case Astrid appeared. She didn’t.

               She had seen him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're now a chapter ahead of my Fan Fiction posting of this story. It's been silly today and won't let me post. I'll chalk it up to a ghost in the mainframe, but so that my lovely readers and their story on time - I decided to post it here, too. Enjoy!

Hiccup set his coffee mug into the sink and yanked the roll of paper towels from its holder. He started to dab the spilled coffee before it stained the grout; he’d seen his mother wash the grout in their bathroom before on her hands and knees with an old toothbrush. He did not want to clean that much.

He kept glancing at the kitchen door where Astrid had stood – to him, only moments before, when in fact it had been over one hundred years since she’d stood there.

Mess cleaned, Hiccup crouched for a while on the kitchen floor. These trans-time crossings were happening more frequently, alarmingly so. Between them, he felt off, like he’d been up too long and his brain had stopped working properly. It all bothered him, but he couldn’t stop them. He needed to find out what happened and how it happened. And to do that, he needed to go back.

He tossed the used paper towels into the trash and stuck the roll back on its rod. His legs shook. He poured a glass of water and headed back into the office. First, he checked his email. No answer had come from HesaCow45.

Should he send him another one? Should he tell him how frequent the trans-time crossings have been happening? Should he imply urgency? Hiccup didn’t know what he expected to come about, answers, maybe, some magical theory that would explain how, why, and most importantly, why him and why now and why this house.

Too many whys.

Hiccup drank half the water in one gulp.

He started to type up another email, but instead of sending it, he saved it as a draft. Seeing the words out there made him realize how much he didn’t want anyone to know about it, not yet at least.

Should he even include it in the book? People out there were waiting for a reason to call his bluff; he had enough doubters to fill entire stadiums. Would the literary world see it as too far into the fictional side of things? Would they suggest he’d lost his edge? That he was slowly starting to lose his mind?

Hiccup was starting to doubt his sanity, too.

But what was he to do? He wouldn’t leave the house – that’s out of the question. First, he’d already bought the place. Second, he couldn’t leave Astrid here.

Hiccup finished the water. He flipped open his notebook, but his notes looked disorganized. None of it made sense anymore. It had before, right?

He stood and walked his empty glass to the kitchen. He refilled it with water and walked out the kitchen door. He hadn’t spent much time on the grounds of the house; he’d never been much of a yard-keeper, and it was beginning to show. The grass around the house had been trimmed and cut short when he’d bought it, but it had started to grow back. Already, weeds were poking up around the small wooden patio that extended from the backdoor.

Hiccup spied the spot where, quite a long time ago, Eret had been chopping wood. Hiccup meandered out to the spot. It had been long since taken over with grass. New trees had sprung up since; a few oaks and maples, and one he couldn’t identify. One tall oak had been there at least since Astrid had lived there. It was too big not to have been. Hiccup started toward it; had Astrid once stood under it?

Hiccup reached the thick trunk and place a hand on the rough bark. He blinked, but didn’t notice a change until a girlish voice sounded on the other side of the tree.

“You’re joking,” she said; Hiccup recognized the voice at once as Astrid’s.

“I am not,” said another, deeper tone.

Hiccup jerked his heard toward the house; the wood pile had returned, the trees shrunk, the house altered ever so slightly. He tiptoed around the tree. Astrid and Eret sat on the other side. He’d walked up behind Astrid. She and Eret sat together underneath the shady oak.

Eret stretched his arms out wide and said, “It was at least this long and as big as my wrist.”

“I’ve seen plenty of snakes,” Astrid said. “For a snake to be that big around, it would have to have been a lot longer. And, those types of snakes don’t live around here.”

“Oh? How do you know?”

“I read about it in one of my dad’s books.”

Eret scoffed. “Books are written by people, you know, and people lie all the time.”

“Like you?”

Eret frowned indignantly, but Astrid laughed.  

“Besides,” Astrid said, “if you found a snake that big, why not come show it off first?”

Eret waved away her question, and said, “I didn’t want to frighten you.”

“Frighten me? Do you know who you’re talking to?”

“I do, unfortunately, which is why I didn’t show it to you,” Eret said. “It’s not fun when I know it wouldn’t have done anything. And I’m not hauling a dragon-sized snake across the yard just so you could not be frightened by it.”

“How courteous of you,” Astrid said.

“I’d like to think of myself as a gentleman.”

“A real gentleman wouldn’t feel the need to brag.”

“I didn’t brag, I didn’t bring the snake.”

“Yet you’ve told me more about it than if you’d just brought the damn thing.”

Eret pretended to look abashed. He put a hand to his chest, and said, “Young lady, that is no way to speak. I know your mother taught you manners. You’ll not get anywhere with a mouth like that.”

“Oh, I’ve heard my mother say it a thousand times,” Astrid said. “She just won’t admit it.”

“You Hofferson women are saucy,” Eret said, smiling.

“We’re not holding you captive,” Astrid said.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

The scene reminded Hiccup of an older movie, but he couldn’t remember which. Eret might have been twelve; Astrid might have been ten. They were flirting like children, mimicking what they’d seen adults do, and it came about with a sweetness that made Hiccup grin. Until, that is, Eret kissed Astrid on the mouth.

It was a short, sweet, and innocent peck, but Hiccup felt a sudden burning of invasion in his chest. He’d gripped the tree without meaning to; he let go at once. How ridiculous. Despite the time and space between them, he’d felt jealous. He shouldn’t, he knew. They were children. They weren’t in love.

Astrid had something else to say, but was cut short by the sound of a horse approaching. A single horse, by the sounds. Hooves galloped down the road and then came to a halt in front of the house.

“Who’s that?” Astrid asked.

Eret jumped to his feet first. He and Astrid started around the house. Hiccup followed. The three of them walked around the side of the house to the front in time to see a man in a Union uniform hand a letter to Mrs. Hofferson. He held the reins of the horse he’d ridden in his other hand.

Mrs. Hofferson trembled. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said the official.

Eret darted toward the porch with Astrid close on his heels.

“What is it, Mother?” Astrid said. She and Eret reached the porch, but Mrs. Hofferson clasp the letter to her chest.

“Never you mind,” Mrs. Hofferson said quickly, her voice trembling. “Get inside, both of you.”

“We’re sorry, Ma’am,” said the official. He climbed back onto his horse. He had other letters to deliver, it seemed; Hiccup spotted a thick bundle of them inside his jacket and more in a saddle bag.

“I understand,” Mrs. Hofferson said, teary-eyed. “Thank you for bringing this to me.”

The official tipped his hat and rode away. Mrs. Hofferson trembled a long moment on the porch. Eret and Astrid stood in the doorway to the house. Finally, she climbed the stairs and retreated into the sitting room, where she collapsed into one of the chairs, and sobbed.

“What is it?” Astrid whispered to Eret.

He shrugged.

“I’ll make some tea,” Astrid said, and she strode into the kitchen.

Eret stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do. Hiccup walked into the sitting room and tried to peer at the letter Mrs. Hofferson clutched. It might hold a date, or a name, or something that might give him a good starting point of research. But she hadn’t opened it. It had been addressed to her and Astrid.

Eret finally came into the room and sat down on the sofa. He said softly, “Mrs. Hofferson, what is it?”

“There’s only one reason they’d send official word like this,” Mrs. Hofferson said woefully. “It’s not good news. It’s never good news. They never send home good news.”

Hiccup’s heart sank. He had a strong suspicion of what the letter said.

“Do you think…” Eret started, but didn’t finish.

“One of them’s dead,” Mrs. Hofferson said so quietly, yet in the house, it sounded like a shout.

Astrid walked into the room with a mug of tea, one of the cups that had remained in the house, and set it gingerly into her mother’s hands.

“Thank you, dear,” she said.

“Who is it?” Astrid asked.

Mrs. Hofferson didn’t answer. “It doesn’t matter. Either way, my heart will break.”

Slowly, Mrs. Hofferson edged the letter open. Her shaking hand withdrew a folded bit of unlined paper. Her eyes read, and as she reached the name, she broke down into tears. Astrid slipped the letter from her hands, and she and Eret bent in to read the dire news for themselves.

“My baby boy,” Mrs. Hofferson sobbed.

“Willie’s gone?” Astrid asked. She tucked the letter back into the envelope. “Mother, come upstairs and rest.”

Mrs. Hofferson gave no objections. She and Eret led her by the hands to the master bedroom, where she lay sobbing on the bed.

They shut the door.

“Will she be alright?” Eret asked.

“I don’t know,” Astrid said.

“He was your brother,” Eret said. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

Hiccup thought back to when he’d watched Willie leave; was Astrid thinking about that moment, too? Was she thinking over the alternatives? Could she have stopped him? Could she have saved him? If she had, her mother wouldn’t be crying.

Hiccup felt horrible, too, and he hadn’t been related to Willie.

They meandered back downstairs. One of the men in the kitchen had woken up, but remained on the cot. Astrid walked in, prepared to give assistance, but he shook his head.

“I’m alright,” he said, hoarse. “Was that your mother crying? What’s happened?”

“My brother’s dead, sir,” Astrid said.

“The war get him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shame,” he said. “Young, strong men are dying and old boots like me are trudging along. Blasted war is taking more than it’s given. I’d rather die myself than a young man give up the rest of his life. Was he married?”

“No, sir.”

“I suppose that’s better. No wife to leave widowed with children to raise. Finding a good man is hard enough without children. This war’s going to leave a lot of widows behind. Nah, you kids need to stop worrying about me. Go outside and play. Be children while you can. Laugh until your lungs hurt. You never know when war’s going to tear the world apart.”

The man closed his eyes. Astrid looked at Eret; neither looked happy about the man’s talk. Eret directed Astrid back into the living room.

“I wished that I could have fought,” Eret said. “I wanted to be a solider like my father, but…I don’t think I would have liked it. All these soldiers coming through…they’ve got this dead look in their eye, you know?”

Astrid nodded. “I’ve seen it.”

“It’s like a part of them has died,” Eret said, fidgeting his fingers. “I-I don’t want to live like that. It’s like a half-life.”

Astrid nodded, and looked down at her own hands. She glanced out of the window, eyes not focused on anything, and then she brought her attention back into the house. Her eyes settled on Hiccup, who stood in the doorway to the foyer.

Should he say something?

Hiccup pointed at himself.

Astrid nodded, lips parted. She glanced at Eret, who hadn’t noticed, and then back at Hiccup. She paled.

“Eret,” she asked, not taking her eyes off Hiccup. “Can I ask you something without you thinking I’m crazy?”

“That’s already happened,” Eret said.

“I’m serious.”

Eret looked up. He noticed Astrid’s intense stare, followed it, and looked between Astrid and the hall several times. A deep crease appeared in his brow.

“What are you looking at?”

“You can’t see anyone there?”

“Where?”

“In the hall,” she said, breathless. She pointed directly at Hiccup. “You can’t see him?”

Eret looked at the hall. He looked at each side. He looked everywhere. He looked at Astrid with a newfound worry. He said, “No. I don’t see anyone. Maybe you should have a lie-down, too, Astrid. You’re suffering from the bad news. Come on, I’ll walk you upstairs.”

Eret stood and gently pulled Astrid to her feet. She didn’t break her eye contact with Hiccup.

“You can’t see him at all?” Astrid asked, a bit flustered.

“I’m willing to bet he can’t hear me either,” Hiccup said, half-joking to himself, but to his surprise, his voice sounded perfectly clear in the sitting room.

“There,” Astrid said, pointing adamantly at Hiccup, a panic in her young voice. “He just spoke! How can you not see him? He is right there!”

Eret spun Astrid and gripped both of her arms. He held her firmly in front of him. Astrid kept trying to look at Hiccup, feverish disbelief on her face.

“Astrid, look at me,” Eret demanded. “There’s no one there. You’re seeing things, alright?”

Astrid looked helplessly between Hiccup and Eret.

Hiccup put a finger to his lips, and said, “It’s okay, Astrid. I’m not a ghost, I think. I’m not sure what I am. You’re not going crazy. Or, we both might be. It’s still up in the air.”

Astrid looked at him with such confusion, worry, and disbelief; it troubled him to see her so, but what could he do?

“Come on,” Eret said, pulling Astrid up the stairs. “Best if your mother doesn’t hear you talking like that or she’ll have you locked in the attic. That’s what happened to my Aunt Maple. She started talking to people that weren’t there in some strange language. They locked her in the attic.”

Hiccup lingered in the hall for a while. He tapped his foot. This crossing seemed to be lasting longer than the others. He walked to the sitting room window and glanced out at the countryside.

A thought struck him – what if he ended up trapped here? What if he couldn’t go home? He had no control over his crossings…what if he couldn’t get back to his own time?

Talking with Astrid had caused him to cross back before. Why not this time? Of course, he’d spoke to her and nothing had happened. He chuckled; Eret thought Astrid crazy; Fishlegs thought him crazy. Who’s to know, maybe they were both right.

Eret came back down the stairs and fell into one other sitting room chairs. He ran his hands through his dark hair. The man in the kitchen had been right, Hiccup decided, a boy like Eret shouldn’t be worrying about war, or death, or anything of the sort. He needed to be playing, imagining, and making a tree fort to throw water balloons from.

Hiccup crossed the room to the hall, walking in front of Eret, who didn’t make a motion. He climbed the stairs and headed for Astrid’s room.

She hadn’t stayed in her room. Instead, she stood in the doorway to her mother’s room, where the sobbing had ebbed, but not completely.

Astrid seemed to sense him and turned.

He put a finger to his lips at once, and said, “Your mother doesn’t need to worry about you right now, and talking to people that she can’t see will worry her.”

Astrid slowly closed her mother’s door. She whispered, “Why can’t anyone else see you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you sure you’re not a ghost?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“What?” Astrid asked. “How can one be ‘pretty’ sure? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m almost completely certain that I’m not,” Hiccup said again.

“But you’re here, no one else can see you, and you always look the same,” she argued.

He didn’t have anything to combat that with.

“Do you have a name?” Astrid asked.

Hiccup opened his mouth to tell her, but Astrid vanished; he stood alone in the hallway. The door to his bedroom stood open. Astrid’s door remained closed. Fishlegs stood on the middle of the stairs, worry creased his brow like someone had dented his forehead.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Another update! Thanks for being awesome and enjoying this.

"Hiccup?" Fishlegs asked.

"Yeah?" Hiccup rubbed is face. It felt like he hadn't slept in days. "I'm alright. It's fine."

"No, it is most certainly not fine," Fishlegs argued.

A small throb started on the side of his head.

Hiccup asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Hiccup, I've been following you around the house for  _three hours_ ," Fishlegs said, holding up three fingers. "You haven't looked at me…you… you haven't heard a word I've said; it's like you're sleep walking. Are you okay? You know, you might be having some sort of brain spasm or seizure. I think it's worth looking into, alright? What if it's some form of brain cancer?"

"Fishlegs, I'm fine," Hiccup said, waving away his concerns. "It's these…crossings that're getting to me."

"That's where you went?" Fishlegs said.

"Yeah…you know, let's get a cup of coffee, and I'll tell you what happened this time," Hiccup said. It might help him sort it out, too.

They retreated into the kitchen where Hiccup tried his best to explain what had happened, while making coffee, to Fishlegs, who, despite his efforts, tried to hold onto his worry despite his excitement.

"I know how awesome this sort of thing is," Fishlegs said, "Trust me, I'm really happy about this, but at the same time, Hiccup, it's obviously not doing you any good. When's the last time you ate?"

"Uh…"

"Exactly," Fishlegs said. "It's draining you physically and emotionally. I think you should take a break for a while."

"From the crossings?"

"Yes," Fishlegs said. "It's…frightening to walk into a room and you're just sitting there, or standing, just staring, unfocused and glassy-eyed at nothing. You won't answer or speak or acknowledge my presence. It's just…it's freaky, alright? It's worse than walking into a room and finding a ghost hanging out."

"I'm sorry…I-I don't know how," Hiccup said. "It just happens. I can't control when I go or when I come back. I could be doing nothing, like fixing coffee, or waking up, or walking down the stairs, and then boom, I'm back in 1862 or whenever."

Fishlegs didn't know what to say. Over his shoulder, in the foyer, Astrid appeared. She leaned against the doorway. Her hand graced the wooden frame, and Hiccup could see each of her delicate fingers. She looked more real than she ever had, even though he could still see the banister through her.

"Each time I go back, I can see her clearer," Hiccup said, looking at Astrid.

"Astrid Hofferson?" Fishlegs asked.

Hiccup nodded. "Each time I go back, I get closer."

"Closer to what?"

"The day she died," Hiccup said, unable to take his eyes off her. "I'll find out what happened. I know there is more to the story than what I've read. She didn't kill herself, Fishlegs."

"I believe you," he said. "Wholeheartedly, but, Hiccup, maybe you should slow down. Take time to do some research or something… just, take an afternoon and get out of the house. You had something to look up at the library in town, right?"

Did he? Hiccup thought back, and it took a moment. Astrid, standing in the doorway, mouthed a name.

"Eret," Hiccup repeated.

"That's the one," Fishlegs said. "Do you think he had something to do with her death?"

Hiccup looked at Astrid for the answer. She shrugged. Hiccup said, "I don't know. She doesn't either."

Fishlegs's enthused face slackened. He said quietly, "Is she here?" He strained to see what Hiccup saw. "Is that what you're looking at?"

"Yeah."

"I don't see her. Wait, is that her, there in the doorway? I can see something, but the sun's too bright. You see her clearly?"

"I can see her like she's nearly a living person," Hiccup said. "When I go back, I can hear her… I-I didn't use to. It was like being underwater, but now… I can. It's like I'm standing there with her."

"I think we should go to the library this afternoon," Fishlegs said suddenly.

Hiccup blinked. He took his attention off Astrid and looked at Fishlegs. He said, "What? Why today?"

"Hiccup," Fishlegs said firmly. "You need to get out of the house."

"No, I'm good. I'll go tomorrow," Hiccup said.

Fishlegs sighed, and said, "Maybe we should have lunch with Heather. I think it would be a good idea to mention these…dreams of yours to her. Maybe she's heard of someone else who's had them, or of someone that knows about them."

"No," Hiccup said. "I don't want to tell Heather. I don't want this to be breaking news in the paranormal community. Have you mentioned anything to her?"

"No," Fishlegs said. "I promised you I wouldn't, and I haven't. But I am suggesting, for your best interest, that you look into some fresh air."

Astrid had entered the kitchen. Her feet padded against the tile floor. She walked to Hiccup's side, placed a cold hand on his arm, and nodded. She mouthed the word, "Go."

"You sure?" Hiccup asked.

She nodded.

"What?" Fishlegs asked, looking between them. "What did she say?"

"She wants me to go," Hiccup said.

"Like…go as in leave? Move out?"

Astrid's hand squeezed his arm. She shook her head.

"No," Hiccup said. "Just for some fresh air, like you said."

She nodded.

Fishlegs sighed, but his worry remained.

X

Hiccup, after a shower and shave, drove into town with Fishlegs. While he finagled a lunch date with Heather, Hiccup retreated to the library's historical section in search of anyone by the name of Eret. It took lengthy research into old court documents, property holders, and tax records, but he finally came across the name on an old marriage certificate from 1882, two years after Astrid's death.

Eret Walker had married Charlotte Mays on June 21st.

Had that been Astrid's Eret? She said he'd stayed in town.

He'd married after her death. Had he had a hand in it? Hiccup listened to his gut, but it was being remarkably silent. He didn't dislike Eret, but he didn't particularly like him, either.

Eret Walker appeared again on a death certificate from 1938. He'd been at the ripe old age of eighty-six. His wife had died four years later. They'd have four children together. His grandson, Robert K. Walker, (eighty-three) still lived in town.

Would Robert Walker have anything to add to Eret's story? It was worth a shot, he supposed.

"Hiccup?" Fishlegs whisper-yelled.

"I'm in here," Hiccup whispered back.

Fishlegs came around the corner, phone in hand. He said, "We've got food plans with Heather in about an hour and a half."

"Cool."

"What have you found?"

"Eret got married and later died," Hiccup said. "According to these, his grandson should still be alive, Robert Walker."

Just then, the older librarian walked into the room. She said in her naturally silent voice, "You talking about old Robert Walker?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Hiccup said. "Do you know him?"

"I know him, yes," she said. "We were sweethearts a ways back."

"Do you know where I can find him?"

"Somewhere in Florida," she said. "He joined the senior citizen migration a few years ago and bought one of those condos down there."

"Oh," Hiccup said. There went that lead.

"Why? What do you need from him?"

Hiccup explained to her about Eret Walker.

"Oh, one of his relatives?" she asked. She glanced at Hiccup's research. He didn't try to hide it from her. She'd been a massive help in the start of the Hofferson project. "I think I remember that name. Eret was a bit of a family story, you see, and Robert loved telling stories. He told me once that his grandpap, this man here, this Eret fellow, came out of nowhere. Says he was a Confederate spy during the war, but he didn't have anything to prove it, and when the war ended he stayed with the north because they won."

"That's interesting," Hiccup said. Could that young boy really have been a confederate spy?

"Interesting, but probably not the truth," she said. "Or, it might have been the one story he had that was true. It's impossible to tell from this spot in time."

"His father might have been a spy," Hiccup said, thinking back to Eret's father. He'd worn a Union uniform, though.

"That's also likely," she said. "We were right on the line, you see, some places were a stone's throw away from the Confederate states. We had more scrapes between people than people like to admit to."

Someone rang the bell on the librarian's desk.

"Thank you," Hiccup said.

"Any time," she said, shuffling toward the desk.

"So, what do you think?" Fishlegs asked, sitting down across from Hiccup.

"I think I know as much as I did when I walked in here," Hiccup said. "I found legend and lore, not fact."

Fishlegs dropped his voice, and said, "Do you think Astrid would be able to answer those questions?"

"Maybe," Hiccup said.

"Maybe she found out he was a spy, and he killed her," Fishlegs said.

"In 1880? The war had been over for fifteen years."

"Maybe she had dirt on him? He did live in her house."

"I don't know," Hiccup said. It didn't make a lot of sense to him. Did he want Eret to have something to do with her death so he could have a reason to dislike him?

Just then, Fishlegs's phone beeped. A new message appeared across the screen. His face fell.

"Heather?"

He read the message and quickly typed a short response. He said, "Something came up. She can't make it." A new message popped up. Fishlegs read, "But tomorrow looks good."

"Sounds good," Hiccup said.

"Sounds…good," Fishlegs said as he thumbed in the text.

X

Hiccup returned home with his pitiful notes. What was happening? He used to be able to spend hours in the library and come home with pages of notes, names, dates, possible ties, and yet, he hadn't been able to focus long enough to find anything more than a marriage and a death on Eret.

Maybe Fishlegs was right. Maybe this house  _was_  draining him.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. He rubbed his face. But what could he do about it? He couldn't leave. He couldn't stop the crossings. Truthfully, he didn't want to stop them.

"What do you mean he's dead?"

Hiccup snapped up; the house had changed again. Standing in the foyer was Randal and Jacob Hofferson. Mrs. Hofferson stood against the banister, looking ashen-faced.

"He snuck off in the middle of the night," Mrs. Hofferson said weakly. "I didn't know or I would have stopped him."

Randal wobbled into the sitting room and collapsed into a chair. "My boy, my son, gone? That fool of a child. I told him war was not a game! He didn't listen and now look at him! Dead! Both my boys…"

"Who's that?" Astrid's chime came from the back of the house. Hiccup entered the foyer just in time to see her set a bucket down in the kitchen.

Randal jumped to his feet, and said, "Is that my little girl?"

Astrid ran into the sitting down. She squealed at the sight of her father and uncle, and jumped into her father's arms.

"Look at you! You're almost a grown woman!"

"She's got a few more years," said her mother.

"How old are you now? Eighteen? Twenty?"

Astrid giggled. "I'm ten!"

"Of course!" Randal said, pretending to be ashamed. "Just ten. You're twice as tall as the last time I saw you!"

Eret came into the house through the kitchen, carrying a bucket similar to Astrid's. He set it down beside hers and came sheepishly into the hallway.

Randal spotted him, and his smiled faded. "Who's this now?"

"This is Eret," Mrs. Hofferson said. "His father stayed here while wounded. He didn't make it."

"Ah," Randal said, as if it all made sense to him. "Well, I guess it's good to know that you had a man in the house while we were gone."

"Someone had to chop wood and clear out the snakes," Eret said.

Randal laughed and slapped Eret on the shoulder. "Aye, I suppose someone does."

Hiccup watched Randal walk into his study, and then he'd gone. All the Hofferson's, and Eret, had gone; Hiccup stood in his study in 2016.

He decided on a cup of coffee, but when he got to the kitchen, he found his coffee pot gone. He spun around to see Eret and Randal walking into the office. Hiccup followed. Randal looked healthier than he had the last time Hiccup had seen him. Eret looked taller and thicker. His hair had reached halfway between his shoulder blades. He no longer looked like a boy. He might have been sixteen or seventeen.

"I've gotten you a job in town," Randal said.

"It's not with horses, is it, Sir?"

Randal laughed, and said, "No. It's at the train station. It's a bit of a hard job, but you're a strong young man, Eret. You're smart, too. You work hard for a few years, prove your strength, then you prove your mind, and you'll be the top of the chain in no time at all."

"What's at the top of the chain?"

"Power, money," Randal said. "Enough to provide good security for a family. A nice home. Nice things."

Eret nodded, and said, "Of course."

"These things don't entice you?"

"No, no, they do, it's just…I'll have to live in town, won't I?"

"Ah," Randal said. He nodded in a fatherly fashion. "It's a long walk here to town every day. Even by horse it's a long ride. Too long. But don't you worry. I've got a cousin who owns a few apartments in town. I won't toss you into the streets, my boy. I'll make sure you're taken care off."

"Thank you, sir."

"But, it's not the apartment or the job you're worried about?"

"Sir?"

Randal smiled. "You're keen on Astrid, aren't you?"

Eret blushed.

"It's alright, she's a fine young lady," Randal said. "You're a fine young man. Tell you what, Eret, work hard and show that you can adequately provide for a family, and I'll frighten any other suitors away."

"Thank you, sir," Eret said, unmistakably relieved.

Hiccup stood by the stairs as Eret gathered what few things he had. Randal had ordered a coach, which stood in the drive. While he gathered Eret's few things, Eret stood on the porch with Astrid. She looked older, too. She was no longer a skinny ten year old girl. She'd grown several inches into a gangly teenage girl.

"Promise you'll write," Astrid said, hand on Eret's arm.

Hiccup tried hard to quiet the jealousy that raged like heartburn.

"Every week," Eret said.

"If you don't, I'll come and find you," Astrid said. "And you'd better not be writing to any other girls."

"I would never."

"I've heard the city girls are pretty."

"Not nearly as pretty as you," he said. "Besides, those city girls are all air. There's nothing in those heads of theirs."

"Alright, we're all set," Randal called from the carriage. "Let's go Eret."

"Goodbye," Astrid said.

"Goodbye," Eret said.

He started down the stairs. Astrid held onto his arm as long as she could. Hiccup stood behind her and watched her as she watched the coach leave the drive and trot down the road and out of site. Astrid leaned onto one of the porch's posts and let out a long sigh. Hiccup tensed at the sound of heartbreak on her breath.

Eret had married someone else, Hiccup reminded himself. He half-wanted to tell Astrid that, but he didn't. She didn't need to know. He'd already messed with the timeline; any more and he might erase his own existence, or allow the Nazis to win World War II, or make it so that some lynchpin person had never done whatever it was that they'd done and the future he returned to would be messed up beyond repair.

Hiccup took a deep breath; he'd been way too into alternative histories in college.


	11. Chapter 11

Hiccup drank his coffee in anticipation, but nothing happened. He finished his first cup without going through time, poured his second, and got halfway through it before anything paranormal happened that morning. Astrid walked into the office, dazzlingly realistic in the overcast light.

               The weatherman on Hiccup’s phone called for a stormy afternoon and a rainy night. So far, he’d been accurate.

               “I went to the library yesterday,” Hiccup told her. “I was looking up information on Eret.”

               He’d gotten her attention.

               “Was his last name Walker?”

               She nodded.

               Hiccup pretended to flip through his notes. He knew what he was going to tell her about him, but he wasn’t sure how she’d react. He wasn’t sure how much, or what, she’d felt toward him. Even the idea that she might have felt something toward him rekindled that sense of jealousy.

               “Do you want to know what happened to him?”

               She hesitated, then she walked over to the chair in the corner. She sat, braced herself, and nodded.

               “He married two years after your death,” Hiccup said.

               Astrid looked to the ground and nodded.

               “To a Charlotte Mays. Does that name sound familiar?”

               Astrid shook her head.

               “Are you okay?” Hiccup asked tentatively. He remembered that old saying about a woman scorned. “I mean, does this bother you? That he married?”

               She shook her head, then looked at him as if to ask, _why would it?_

               Hiccup cleared his throat. “I, uh, saw you and him say goodbye when he left the house. Your father got him a job in town. He promised to write.”

               Astrid gave him a look of understanding. She stood suddenly and walked to the stairs. She paused at the bottom and motioned for him to follow.

               Hiccup stood and did as she asked. She led him to her bedroom. Hiccup watched in awe as her phantom fingers curled around the doorknob and opened the door. She walked inside and he followed. It felt a bit stuffy inside, because Hiccup didn’t open her window when he opened the rest.            

               Astrid walked to her closet door and pointed inside. She ducked and crawled inside the dark space. Hiccup bent down to see what she was doing. In the stormy daylight, he saw her poke at one of the narrow panels of the closet’s wall. She jabbed at it enough that it came a bit lose.

               “Oh? The old loose floorboard, eh?” Hiccup said.

               Astrid leaned back out and glanced at him, shaking her head. She motioned to the panels.

               “I know,” Hiccup said. “It’s just the ‘loose floorboard under the bed’ is a cliché in mysteries these days.”

               She motioned again to the panel.

               “Do you want me to open it?”

               She nodded.

               Hiccup leaned in farther and ended up on his elbows. He pushed the panel in; the bottom came out. Inside the panel he spotted something that didn’t belong. He reached in, fully expecting spiders to lunge at his invading limb, but none did. He pulled out a small wooden box.

               Astrid motioned for him to open it.

               Old box hidden in a closet in a haunted house… yeah, that didn’t come with any sort of misgivings. None at all.

Even though horror movies had taught him not to, his paranormal instincts told him to go ahead. Taking a deep breath, he opened it. Inside were letters. Dozens of letters, all addressed to Astrid. Hiccup opened the top letter; it was from Eret. Dated April of 1875.

               “These are the letters he sent you,” Hiccup said.

               Astrid nodded.

               “Can I… and I understand entirely if you say no, but can I read them?”

               She nodded.

               “Are you sure? I know these are personal, but they might hold some kind of a clue.”

               She nodded again and shooed him toward the door. Hiccup took the box of letters down into the kitchen and set the box on the table. He opened the first letter and began to read. As he started on the third letter, the first clap of thunder sounded outside. Lightning flashed, but Hiccup didn’t notice.

               In his letters, Eret talks about his new job at the railroad. There’s a lot of lifting, he says, mostly brainless work, but the boss has already taken a liking to him, or he thinks. He talks about his coworkers, the people that come and go on the train, his new landlord, his strange neighbors.

               The letters range from 1875 to 1880; as Eret and Astrid grow older, the letters mature, too. Eret mentions that a lot of his coworkers are married and how nice they make it sound to come home to a wife. He’s gotten a promotion; he’s moved out of the apartment and into a small house in town.

               It is one letter in particular, from March of 1880, that gets Hiccup’s attention. Eret mentions his concern about ‘the other man.’ Astrid had mentioned him in her letters to him, it seemed, and it made Eret worried. It made Hiccup worry, too.

              

               _I’m worried about you, Astrid. This ‘other man’ you talk about is a strange thing. Any apparition is a dangerous one. I hate to suggest it, but maybe your house is haunted. It wouldn’t the first and surely won’t be the last. Think of how many soldiers died in your house during the war. It wouldn’t be uncommon for one of those men to be lingering._

_But, ghosts aren’t to be messed with, love. They’re dangerous, sinful beings. Communing with them is communing with demons. Stay away from that man lest you invite evil into your home. Unless, you’ve really met another man? I know a family moved in not but a short walk from your door. Should we marry sooner? I hate the thought of someone else trying to sway you, especially without me there to ward him off._

_On a sweeter note, is your father doing all right? He seemed a bit distracted the last time he was in town. A bit grayer, too. I do hope you’re not stressing the poor man out, Astrid. He’s had a rough life of his own._

_Time’s up, I must return to my duties._

_With love,_

_Eret Walker_

 

               There were no more letters.

               March of 1880…Astrid had died in 1880, but the exact date eluded him.

               But, it wasn’t what bothered him the most about the letter. There was another man in Astrid’s life? Ghosts…Eret thought Astrid lived in a haunted house?

               Then it smacked into him.

               “Me,” Hiccup said aloud. Eret had been talking about another man, a ghostly man, that Astrid talked about – she’d been talking about _him_. There were no other Civil War ghosts in the house.

               He felt another sprig of panic rising in his chest. Had he been the cause of Astrid and Eret’s relationship falling apart? If not for him, would they have married? Would she have lived a happy life in town with him? Would she have died peacefully?

               God, how much had he screwed up this poor girl’s life without meaning to?

               Hiccup packed the letters back into the box, carefully, as to not damage the old paper, and stood to return the box to Astrid’s room; he made it to the foyer. The house shifted. The storm outside vanished, and the world glowed bright with a sunny afternoon. Hiccup sighed. It shouldn’t surprise him, but it did. Each crossing felt like waking up from a vivid dream.

               Hiccup was still holding the box.

               …if he brought the box up to Astrid’s room, would he find a similar box in its place? If they touched, would reality ceased to exist?

               Better not take the chance.

               Instead, he made to turn into the office, when he heard…sounds. _Pleasurable_ sounds. Hiccup froze, embarrassment flooding him. Someone, two of them, were currently in the midst of a passionate afternoon meeting. Hiccup walked back into the sitting room. He’d rather not hear that. Unfortunately, the couple upstairs weren’t trying to be quiet at all. Hiccup pushed out some of the sound by talking to himself, humming, and plugging his fingers with his ears.

               As he sat there, trying his best to ignore the romantic interlude, a thought struck him. His jealous-prone mind threw two faces into the sounds; his mind, despite his efforts, pixelated the image for him, of Eret and Astrid. His skin felt like melting wax. His tongue felt like a lead weight. His stomach fell into his ankles.

               No, it wouldn’t necessarily be them; it very possibly, and most likely, could have been Randal and Ingrid. It had been coming from _their_ bedroom, and they were married. Obvious. Hiccup felt stupid for thinking otherwise.

               Finally, the sounds stopped. The two upstairs were talking lowly, giggling, and all the nonsense things that lovesick puppies would do. The door to the master bedroom opened and closed and another down the hall opened.

               Hiccup stayed put where he was, just in case his logic failed him.              

               A carriage trotted down the drive, and Hiccup turned in his seat to see who’d come. His heart sank a bit. Out of the carriage came Astrid and her father, Randal Hofferson.

               Hiccup glanced up the stairs, but he didn’t see anyone.

It dawned on him. “Oh…”

               The front door to the house opened, and Randal walked in first, followed by Astrid. Hiccup ducked out of Astrid’s sight. He didn’t want her to find another strange occurrence with a ‘ghost’ in her house.

               “We’re back,” Randal called to the house.

               “I’m upstairs, dear,” called his wife, Ingrid.

               “Took you long enough,” Jacob said, walking down the second floor hallway from the opposite direction of the master bedroom. “Did you have trouble along the way? Loose a wheel?”

               Hiccup watched as the two brothers hugged. Jacob walked into the kitchen and out the backdoor while Randal walked upstairs. Astrid meandered up the stairs as well. She held a new book in her hands, but he couldn’t read the title as she walked by.

               Hiccup waited for some explosive confrontation, evidence of adultery, but none came. Mrs. Hofferson walked out of the master bedroom and a few moments later her husband followed, talking about dumplings. Apparently, the restaurant in town couldn’t cook near as well as Mrs. Hofferson.  

               Hiccup still stood as Randal went out to pay the driver of the carriage. Hiccup wasn’t paying attention as Astrid came back down the stairs, book in hand, until he heard the book slap onto the stairs. He jumped and spun. She stood on the second to top stair. The book lay on the fourth to top stair. Her gaze pierced Hiccup, and slowly her eyes shifted to the box he held in his hands.

               She paled.

               “That’s my…” she said.

               Her father came back inside. “That’s your what, dear?”

               “Nothing,” Astrid said.

               “You look a bit white,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

               She shook her head. “No…I just…felt dizzy all of a sudden.”

               “Go lie down before you fall,” he said.

               Astrid bent down and picked up her book, then retreated into her bedroom.

               Hiccup, heart thumping madly, meandered into the kitchen. Mrs. Hofferson, humming, had started to make dinner.

               Hiccup’s grip tightened on the box. He had a very foul view of cheaters. He’d felt fond of Mrs. Hofferson and in less than an afternoon, he loathed her.

               “Everything alright, dear?” asked Randal as he walked into the kitchen.

               “Yes, of course, love,” Mrs. Hofferson said.

               “Jacob wasn’t too much trouble, I hope.”

               At those words, she paused. She turned to him with a confused glance. “Of course not, why would he be?”

               “Oh, he can be a nuisance when he wants,” Randal said. “Like a fly in your ear or a sweat bee.”

               Hiccup tensed at the tone, at the look, at the suspicion; Randal knew.

               Before Hiccup could hear the rest, he stood in his own kitchen. Rain hammered the windows. Lightning flashed, brightening the bending trees as the wind howled. Thunder barked and tore at the sky.

               “It’s getting bad out there,” Fishlegs said absently. He sat at the kitchen table with a sandwich in front of him.

               “What? Yeah, it is,” Hiccup said.

               “Oh, are you back?”

               “I think so.”

               “Good,” Fishlegs said. “What’s in that box? You’ve had it in a death grip for like twenty minutes.”

               “It’s letters,” he said. “From Eret to Astrid.”

               Fishlegs’s eyes lit up. “Really? Can I read them?”

               “I-I don’t know,” Hiccup said. He held the box tighter. “They’re not really mine to give you permission.”

               “Oh, right, that makes sense,” Fishlegs said.

               “But, I did just find out something important,” Hiccup said. He looked around to see if Astrid was in the room. She wasn’t. He whispered, “Mrs. Hofferson was sleeping with her husband’s brother.”

               “What?” Fishlegs asked. “But…wait…he was married, right?”

               “Yeah, I think so,” Hiccup nodded. “Let me get my notes.”

               Hiccup put the box down in his office and retrieved his notes. He returned to the kitchen. He flipped to the dates and names.

               “Yeah, he was, to… Karla Hofferson. She died in 1853. Miscarriage.”

               “So…if she died in 1853…who’s not to say that this affair didn’t start then?” Fishlegs said. “I mean, I hate to be the one to suggest something like that, but it’s possible.”

               “Yeah,” Hiccup said absently.

               “What’s up?”

               “I hadn’t looked at my notes in a while,” Hiccup said. “I’d forgotten. Randal and Ingrid had another son, Robert, in 1859. He’d be four years younger than Astrid.”

               “Yeah, what about him?”

               “I’ve never seen him,” Hiccup said. He flipped through his notes. “I-I’d forgotten…Robert Hofferson died in 1865. He would have been six.”

               “That’s young,” Fishlegs asked.

               “But…where was he?” Hiccup asked. “I’ve not seen him at all.”   

               “How much of that time period did you see? It’s possible he was there, but sick or something,” Fishlegs suggested. “You know, I did get a weird feeling for that room beside the parlor upstairs. That might have been his room. Does it say how he died?”

Hiccup read on. “The cause was unknown. And later, Jacob died in 1870, supposedly in his sleep, cause unknown.”

               “Okay,” Fishlegs said. “People died for a lot of strange reasons, most of which are totally normal today, but back then they didn’t understand liver failure or appendicitis or cancer.”

               “It’s just… I don’t know. The more information I get, the more confusing it all seems. But, I guess, that shows that I’m going back before 1870 if Jacob is still alive.”

               “See? A silver lining.”

               Hiccup stared through his notes for a while longer in his study. He felt like he was missing something, but he felt like it was staring him straight in the face.

               His concentration was interrupted only when Astrid appeared in the door.

               “Hey,” Hiccup said casually. “I’ve been meaning to return your box, but I’ve been distracted.”

               She nodded.

               “I’ve got a strange, possibly personal question for you,” he said. “Feel free not to answer. But…did you know, or suspect, at any time, that your mother might not have been completely…faithful to your father?”

               Astrid didn’t look angry or offended. Instead, she nodded.

               “Did you know she was sleeping with your uncle Jacob?”

               She nodded grimly. She pointed to herself, held out both of her hands as if weighing something, and then shrugged.

               “It was going on for a while, wasn’t it?”

               She nodded.

               “You think that…maybe… Jacob could be your father?”

               She nodded.

               “Whoa,” Hiccup said. He slouched in his chair. “One’s your father and one’s your uncle, but you don’t know which is which. That’s rough.”

               Astrid shrugged, implying that it didn’t really matter.

               “They’re still family either way, right?”

               She nodded.

               “But…did your father ever find out?”

               Astrid fidgeted with the skirt that hung between her knees. After a moment, she nodded.

               “I bet he wasn’t happy.”

               She shook her head, no.

               “Did they fight?”

               Yes.


	12. Chapter 12

Hiccup pulled his work boots over his pajama bottoms. One of the breakers had gone off, and half the house had been plunged into darkness. The breaker box had been added on inside a little shed attached to the back of the house; it’s also where Hiccup had planned on storing the lawn equipment when he got around to buying said equipment.

               He reached the door to the shed; with a clap of thunder, the shed vanished. Rain drizzled down from thick gray clouds. His boots squished in the mud.

               He glanced around; at the far end of the property, near the tree line, a crowd of black-clad people were gathered. Hiccup made his way down the muddy lawn to where they stood, wet and miserable. It didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened.

               At first, he thought it might be a funeral for Willie, but Hiccup spotted his grave a few stones over. Grass had grown over it. A fresh grave had been dug out and a plain wooden coffin lay inside. The headstone read Jacob K. Hofferson, 1819 – 1870.

The entire family stood outside, despite the rain that drizzled, along with people that Hiccup didn’t know, while they buried him. Astrid stood in black next to her mother, also in black. Both looked dazed as people often do at sudden funerals. Randal looked as stoic as a man could, stony faced in his suit and tall hat. A preacher said a few words of vague comfort and eternity, the first shovel of dirt landed with a hollow plop on the coffin door, and the crowd slowly dissipated back toward the house for a meal prepared by others.

               Hiccup disliked funerals, but not as much as he hated hospitals. There was something strangely melancholy and humbling about it all; it reminded everyone how quickly a life can end, how short they really are, and renew a sense of life in those still living.

               Hiccup fell in with the black and gray clad crowd. He felt morbidly out of place in his plaid pajama bottoms and work boots. He kept out of sight from Astrid. He didn’t want to ‘haunt’ her uncle’s funeral. Or, possibly, her father’s funeral. There was no way to know for sure.

               Hiccup stayed out of the way as the somber funeral meal took place; Astrid picked at her food, as did her mother; Randal barely spoke. At long last, the people trickled out of the doors with many repetitive farewells and well-wishes.

               “That’s it then,” Mrs. Hofferson said, her throat hoarse and her voice weak. “It’s just the three of us.”

               “As it should be,” said Randal.

               The coldness in his tone made Hiccup feel even more unwelcome that he had before. Randal started up the stairs, and Hiccup jumped from his place near the top. Even though Randal couldn’t see or hear or feel him, he didn’t want to chance it.

               Randal neared the top of the stairs and paused at the top. Hiccup held his breath; Randal glanced down the hallway, his eyes scanning where Hiccup stood.

               Could he see him?

               No, he looked at all the shadows, not just the one where Hiccup stood. He stood there for a long while, looking at nothing, searching. He wore an exhausted expression, but his eyes were alert, wild even, and Hiccup desperately did not want to be seen by him.

               After a long moment, Randal continued to his bedroom and closed the door. Hiccup let out a breath of relief.

               With the exhalation, he returned to his own hallway, in his house. The door to the master bedroom stood open, just as he’d left it. The lights were still off.

               “Hiccup?” Fishlegs called from downstairs. “Where is the breaker box? I’ve looked everywhere!”

               “Out back,” Hiccup called down. He started back down the steps… someone had left dirty specs up and down the stairs. He followed it. The trail of dirt led to the backdoor. Hiccup glanced down at his feet. He’d worn his boots, which had brought in dirt from outside. Lucky he hadn’t brought back mud from 1870.

               The lights in the kitchen flickered, then those that had been off came back to life. In a moment, Fishlegs came back in through the backdoor.

               “I found it,” he said. He glanced down at Hiccup’s boots. “Oh, sorry, I beat you to it.”

               “That you did,” he said. He shook off his boots and reached in the closet for the electric sweeper his parents’ had given him when he’d gone to college.

               After sweeping up the dirt, Hiccup replaced it in the closet. He turned to find Fishlegs standing in the door to the foyer.

               “Yes?” Hiccup asked.

               “We’ve got a late lunch with Heather, remember?”

               “Oh!” Hiccup had forgotten. He didn’t count the minutes to when he saw Heather like Fishlegs did. “Right…uh, give me a few minutes to change. Ten tops.”

               Fishlegs wandered around downstairs while Hiccup changed out of his pajamas. He quickly washed his face and threw on the first thing in his dresser and dashed out of the door. Fishlegs volunteered to drive, again, as he had before, even though Hiccup had offered.

               “Do you think you’ll… you know, like… go back, when you’re not in the house?” Fishlegs asked, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

               “I don’t know,” Hiccup said. “I’d like to say that I won’t, but I don’t know how these things work.”

               “Well, I for one think it’s good for you to get out of the house,” Fishlegs said.

               They drove into town talking of the normal: paranormal. Hiccup and Fishlegs talked about the one thing they’d been throwing around for several years; they wanted to host a convention. Neither knew a thing about starting one, so they’d been pushing it onto the backburner.

               “It won’t have to be a big one,” Fishlegs said. “We can use the hotel in town. Ask a few guest speakers to do some lectures. We’ll need a caterer. We can have a tour of the haunted parts of the city.”

               “If we have it in town, they’ll want to come visit the house,” Hiccup said. He frowned. “I don’t want hundreds of strangers trampling through my house. Haunted as it may be, it’s still my house. I live there.”

               “True,” Fishlegs said. “I suppose… how does St. Louis sound? It’s a central location, and there are plenty of old hauntings. Any big city is bound to have plenty of them.”

               “Uh-huh,” Hiccup agreed. “St. Louis sounds like a nice starting point. We could drive there in a day or less.”

               “And they’ve got plenty of other attractions so we wouldn’t have to constantly hold events.”

               “I haven’t been to the zoo in ages,” Hiccup said. The last time he’d gone had been on a field trip in grade school. His father had been a chaperone.

               “We could have an afternoon at the zoo!”

               Hiccup laughed; it reminded him of how long it had been since he’d laughed. “Sure. I think I like where this is going.”

               They named other things St. Louis had to offer as they drove into town. By the time they stopped at Heather’s office, they’d started a list that would last them through a week-long convention. Heather appeared through the office door. She got into the backseat.

               “Hey, guys,” she said. “I’m starving. I skipped lunch today to catch up on my query folder. American sounds fantastic.”

               “Where do you recommend?” Fishlegs asked.

               “Gigi’s,” Heather said. “It’s a bit of a hole in the wall, but the food is amazing! Go straight here and take a left on Fourth Avenue.”

               As Heather directed them to Gigi’s, Hiccup and Fishlegs filled her in on their newest plans for a convention. The talk continued after they’d gone inside, sat down, and ordered.

               “That sounds great, guys,” Heather said. “I mean, it’ll boost your popularity and give your fans a chance to meet each other in person. I’m all for it.”

               “That’s great,” Fishlegs said.

               “Do you have a date in mind?”

               “Next year at least,” Hiccup said.

               Heather gasped, and said, “We can use the convention on your book’s opening weekend!”

               Hiccup laughed nervously, and said, “Sure.”

               “Why not have it here in town, then?”

               Hiccup quickly explained his reluctance to have strangers ogling and coming to his house.

               “You know, Hiccup, when the books launches, you’ll have people coming to see it anyway.”

               “Yeah, but not all at once,” Hiccup said. “I can keep track of a few visitors, not a hundred.”

               She nodded in agreement, and said, “I’ll have to talk to our legal guy about adding a disclaimer advising people not to show up unannounced. We had another writer co-write a documentary about that old sanitarium in Kentucky… what’s the name? It’s something creepy… Waverly Hills. Well, it’s always been a hot spot, but when this article came out, people flocked to it. It’s off limits to the public, so of course there was an upsurge of trespassing. Some idiot fell and hurt himself and now wants to sue the owners. It’ll get thrown out, of course, but it’s still a headache to deal with.”

               “Ouch,” Fishlegs said. “Uh, maybe we should change the name of the house to something else?”

               “We’ve already advertised it as the Hofferson House,” Heather said grimly. “Otherwise I might agree with that. That’s the problem with the paranormal nuts. They’re more nuts than the normal nuts.”

               “At least they don’t wear aluminum helmets,” Hiccup said calmly.

               They laughed; it had been a reoccurring joke since they launched the website.

               Their food came and they ate in moderate silence. With refilled drinks, Heather brought the conversation around to something lighter.

               “So, Hiccup,” Heather said, swirling her light beer. “I’ve got this friend…”

               “Is it you?”

               Smiling, she said, “No. I’ve got this friend I’d like you to meet.”

               “Oh.”

               “Don’t look go glum about it,” Heather said. “She’s an editor in the fantasy side of things. She’s a bit of a nerd, slender, cute, intelligent… she’s a real catch. Natural blonde, too.”

               “I don’t know,” Hiccup said. The idea of a date made him feel a bit woozy.

               Heather and Fishlegs looked at one another. Secret, unspoken information passed between them.

               “Hiccup,” Heather said firmly. “We’re all planning a weekend away. We’re going down to Baton Rouge for a few days. We would like you to come along. Get away for a while.”

               Hiccup sipped his beer and glanced at Fishlegs. Had he said something to Heather? Fishlegs kept his own eyes on his Long Island Ice Tea.

               “Are you inviting your editor friend?”

               Heather blushed a bit. “I might be.”

               Hiccup sighed. “I don’t know.”

               “Hiccup, it’ll be fun,” Heather said. “We can go see Snotlout and the twins and see what mess they’ve made for themselves.”

               Hiccup half-laughed. Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut had been childhood friends. Snotlout had married Ruffnut right out of high school and moved down to Baton Rouge. Tuffnut, who’d managed to ban himself from every job within a hundred miles, moved with them. For all Hiccup knew, he’d managed to find something he was good at. Last he knew, Tuffnut was working as a haunted tour guide, (as in he led the tour of haunted places, not that he himself was haunted while he gave a tour).

               “It won’t have to be a date,” Heather said. “She’s a fun girl. Her name is Rosy Williams. Check her out on Facebook. If you can’t find her, she’s one of my friends. Send her a message. I’ve told her about you. Not to make it a deal, but she’s a bit of a fan.”

               Hiccup chuckled. “That’s the last thing I need.”

               “And, Baton Rouge as plenty of haunted places,” Fishlegs said. “We might get some work done, like a special article for the site, or maybe even your next book.”

               “Possibly,” Hiccup said. “When are you planning this?”

               “We haven’t set a date yet,” Heather said. “Finding time when Rosy and I can both get off has been a bit of a challenge. We’re saving up our vacation days.”

               Truth be told, Hiccup loved travel, but he hated the thought of leaving the house. What if he left and the trans-time crossings stopped? What if he never found out the truth?

               “Hiccup?” Heather asked as she accepted the bill. She refused to let Fishlegs pay. Of course, she made a bit more than either of them.

               “I’m just… maybe later. I’d rather work on this book before I lose the mojo, you know?”

               Heather and Fishlegs both frowned.

               “What?” Hiccup asked.

               No one spoke as they returned to the car. Hiccup took the backseat. He buckled himself in, but Fishlegs didn’t start up the car. He and Heather sat with looks of utmost seriousness.

               He knew at once they’d been talking about him.

               He asked, “What’s wrong?”

               “Hiccup, you need to get out of that house for a while,” Heather said.

               “Did Fishlegs tell you?”

               “He told me that you’ve been too deep in this,” Heather said. “No, he didn’t give me any more details than that because he promised not to. Hiccup, what is going on? It’s like you’ve been doing drugs or something. You’re secretive. You refuse to go out. You’re shut up in that house. You’re distant.”

               “I’m focusing,” Hiccup said defensively. “The house has an interesting history.”

               “Is that all?” Heather asked.

               “I’m not doing drugs,” Hiccup said.

               “Sometimes the paranormal acts like a drug,” Heather said. “Are you sure you haven’t bitten off more than you can chew? Should we look into an exorcist?

               “No,” Hiccup said, rolling his eyes. Heather knew his thoughts on those people. They ranked somewhere along seances and psychics. He might was well dab fish oil behind his ears. “I’m fine, Heather, really. I’m eyeball deep in this mystery. I’m close to figuring out what happened to Astrid.”

               “I thought she killed herself?” Heather asked.

               “No, I don’t think she did,” Hiccup said.

               Heather and Fishlegs shared a glance, and Fishlegs started up the car. They drove back to Heather’s office in silence.

               Hiccup knew he should feel bad about shutting his friends out, but they didn’t understand. No one could; how was he supposed to explain how he felt about the house? About Astrid? He knew things about her, about her family, that the books hadn’t mentioned. He was, quite literally, discovering history. It was thrilling… almost, as Heather had suggested, like a drug. He had to find out. He needed to go back.

               Fishlegs drove back to the house – after a pit stop for groceries – and Hiccup unloaded them in the kitchen. Their stores had been a bit low. As he stuck the bag of chips into the cabinet, he began to wonder – Fishlegs had been here a while. Not that he minded, he was his best friend and co-founder, but did he linger for other reasons? Was he watching Hiccup? He was closer to Heather here, Yes, that was it.

               “I’ve got some new tech I want to try out,” Fishlegs said, coming down the stairs. I disemboweled that remote control airplane I got to make this!”

               He held out what looked like a Frankenstein’s Mini-Helicopter. It had what appeared to be a three hundred and sixty degree camera on the bottom, along with microphones on top.

               “Visual and audio,” Hiccup said.

               “That’s right! It can be flown like a remote control plane, or stationary. I’ve devised a rig to hold it onto any light fixture that will support it’s ten pounds,” Fishlegs said. “I want to test it out in the living room.”

               “Be my guest,” Hiccup said, motioning toward the living room. He followed.

               Fishlegs, by way of a kitchen chair, attached the new device to the ceiling fan. It dangled below the lights.

               “It’s wireless,” Fishlegs said, remote control in hand. “It transmits a signal right to my computer.”

               “So… I shouldn’t walk around naked?”

               “No… I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn’t. Come on upstairs. I want to see the picture.”

               Hiccup and Fishlegs, like with any new equipment, ran upstairs to the guest room. Fishlegs had made himself at home – he’d made the room look lived in. He’d scattered his work about the room, equipment parts, lenses, bits of wires, motherboards, RAM discs, jump drives, and all manner of electronic bits and pieces. He stepped carefully to the laptop on the antique bureau and clicked into one of the many icons on the desktop.

               He brought up the camera feed.

               The living room appeared as an entire picture, distorted, but the new camera didn’t leave any space unseen.

               “Nice,” Hiccup said. “This’ll come in handy during investigations.”

               “I’ve already taken the liberty of listing some of the more popular hauntings in town and around. We haven’t done a livestream in a while, or a new episode since you moved, and our fans are getting restless. I’ve used almost all the old footage to bide us some time. I’ve picked out this old brewery. It’s about fifty miles, but I think it’ll be well worth it. I’ve already spoken to the owner. He’s keen on it, too. We just need to set up a time.”

               “Right,” Hiccup said. The thought of leaving the house filled him with a strange sense of dread. “Well, we’ll need time to get ready. I’ll need to do research on it first. What’s today… how about the last week in October? It can be a Halloween special, too.”

               “That works,” Fishlegs said. “I’ll get this over to the owner and we can start preparing. Oh, I’m so excited to get back into the game!”

               “Me, too,” Hiccup said, although he didn’t feel as much as Fishlegs showed.

               Fishlegs was talking; a silvery something entered the living room. Hiccup spotted her at once. On camera, she didn’t look nearly as clear. She appeared as a ghost, misty and shadowy. Fishlegs stopped talking and gasped; he’d seen the screen.

               “She’s downstairs,” he whispered.

               Astrid stood in the doorway a while and then glided into the room. She spotted the camera and glided toward it, face a misty mask.

               Fishlegs held his breath.

               Astrid glided out of view and into the kitchen.

               They were ghost hunters, Hiccup reminded himself. Evidence like that should be worthwhile, and yet it didn’t feel like it had before.

               “Oh, shit,” Fishlegs spat. “I wasn’t recording!”


	13. Chapter 13

Hiccup couldn’t concentrate on his writing. He’d managed to squeeze out a rough outline of his book, but it felt incomplete, somehow. It felt…lackluster. He’d organized his notes as much as he could. In truth…he hadn’t been ghost hunting in the house like he thought he would. He’d spent far more time talking with Astrid and trying to figure out what had happened.

               That first day they’d communicated with the flashlights had been so amazing. He’d made contact so quickly and she had been so ready to talk back. He needed more sessions like that; he needed to record sessions like that. He needed them for his site, for his credibility, for his reputation as a legit ghost hunter, not a fraud like people wanted to call him. Relying on his evidence of trans-time crossings would not support him with that crowd.

               Hiccup had decided to leave those parts out in case people accused him of lying, or having “visions” – which accumulated to lies.

               When he’d written all he thought he could, he put his shoes on and walked outside. He walked down the weedy property line – he should look into one of those lawncare companies – and down to the old family cemetery. It didn’t take long to find Jacob’s now faded and weathered tombstone; beside him was his wife, Carla. He found Randal and Ingrid, buried side by side. Beside them were their three children, in order of death: Robert, Willie, and Astrid.

               Standing so close to Astrid’s grave gave him a fierce chill. It reiterated her death. Hiccup sighed. Dead. Astrid was dead, no matter how alive her spirit seemed.

               Undoubtedly, the house would feel empty with her gone.

               With those thoughts, another struck him; did he want her to move on?

               It shocked him when he couldn’t think of an answer. Yes, he did, because that’s what he should want. He should want the best for her lingering spirit. No, he didn’t, because he’d gotten used to her. He liked having her around.

               The graves hadn’t told him anything that he didn’t already know, so Hiccup started back toward the house. The weather was nice, warm, but nice. He crossed the wide lawn to the ageless oak. He walked behind it on his way to the backdoor, then he heard their voices.

               “What do you say?” a male asked. Hiccup knew the voice; it was Eret.

               “I-I don’t know what to say,” Astrid whispered, either worried or excited.

               Hiccup stepped around the tree; he stood behind Astrid. She and Eret were hidden in the shade of it from the house. Anyone looking couldn’t see them. He peered around her shoulder. Eret held onto her left hand, where a ring now sat.

               An small engagement ring.

               “I would hate not to tell them,” Astrid said. “To just leave like that…they would be worried.”

               “We’d send them a letter when we got there,” Eret said.

               “How do you know my father wouldn’t be mad?”

               Eret said nervously, “I admit, he’s part of the reason I want to elope.”

               Astrid looked up at him. She didn’t look worried at his words. Slowly, she nodded. “I know. He’s…getting worse, isn’t he?”

               “Half the time I’m not sure he even knows who I am,” Eret said. “He’s always got this angry look about him, like he can’t decide if he wants to kill me or not. I worry about you here, Astrid. I’ll take better care of you, and you’ll take care of me. I’ve got a good job lined up. We’ll be more than alright.”

               Hiccups stood for a moment listening to them talk about eloping. He knew it never happened. Astrid hadn’t married. According to his research, she never had gotten engaged. They would not elope, and yet Hiccup felt a dislike for the entire affair.

               Eret and Astrid had both grown since the last time he’d seen them. Neither looked gangly or awkward; Eret looked every bit a young man who could hold his own. Astrid had become a young woman. Her limbs had filled out from her gangly teenage years and her dress showed those gentle curves.

               What time was it? Hiccup put a hand to his pocket like his phone would somehow magically know the year. His phone, however, remained in 2016. The screen didn’t respond to his touch – it had frozen.

               “We can’t this week,” Astrid said, slipping the ring from her finger. Eret closed his hand around it. “It’s mother’s birthday and she would be heartbroken if I left her now. Next week.”

               “Next week,” Eret said. “I’ll be by on Sunday for you.”

               “They’ll never know,” she said, smiling.

               “They won’t know until they’ve received a letter,” Eret said. “Don’t worry about your things. I’ll buy you new ones once we’re settled. There’s a fine tailor in town. My neighbor’s sister works there.”

               “Astrid?” Mrs. Hofferson called from the house. “Astrid, dear, where are you?”

               Astrid and Eret shared a quick kiss and they started for the house. Eret tucked the ring back into a little box and tucked the box into his pocket.

               Hiccup followed at a pace. He didn’t want Astrid to see him. They went into the kitchen were Mrs. Hofferson sat over a large pot.

               “I want to show you how to make stew,” Mrs. Hofferson said. “You’ll need to know.”

               “Of course,” Astrid said, passing a sly glance to Eret.

               “Eret, dear, I think Randal is looking for you. Something about some investments.”

               “Of course,” Eret said, bowing himself out of the kitchen he started toward the study.

               Hiccup got caught in the middle. He started to follow Eret; Astrid spotted him. While her mother explained the proper way to peel potatoes, her eyes followed him as he walked across the kitchen.

               “Astrid, are you paying attention?”

               “Yes, Mother.”

               “What are you looking at?”

               “Nothing.”

               “You’ll have plenty of time to stare at Eret once you’re properly married, now come here and pay attention. I don’t want to get letters from you saying how horrible you’ve been cooking. A man needs a good wife to cook for him.  
               “Yes, Mother.”

               Hiccup lingered in the doorway. Astrid looked every bit as lovely in life as she did in death; as her mother cooked, Astrid cast glimpses over her shoulder at Hiccup. When Astrid looked toward the stew, Hiccup slipped into the hallway. He walked to the office, where Randal and Eret were chatting about people and banking accounts.

               He noticed at once what Eret had meant about Randal looking strange. Dark circles hung under his eyes and he’d lost considerable weight. His skin had paled and sunken in. He looked like a deranged prisoner.           

               Hiccup slipped into the office. Neither man seemed to noticed him. He walked around to the desk and peered down at the papers.

               He was looking for a date.

               At last, he found one on a fresh letter that Randal had paused in writing. The date in the corner read April 5, 1880.

               Hiccup felt his skin crawl. Astrid died in 1880.

               If she and Eret planned on eloping that next weekend, and they never made it, then that would mean something stopped them – like a death. It meant that Astrid would die within the following week.

               She did not, at any point, seem the type to result to suicide. Hiccup refused to believe it. Of course, he’d heard that heartbreak drove people to do what they never thought themselves capable.

               Had Eret broken the engagement? Had he met the woman who would become his wife? Both her parents seemed keen on their marriage, what then could have happened?

               Hiccup stayed in the office listening to Eret and Randal talk for a while longer, then he drifted back into the kitchen were Astrid and Mrs. Hofferson stood. Astrid had taken over the cutting board. She didn’t peel potatoes nearly as fast as her mother.

               Hiccup leaned against the doorframe, intent of finding the answer, but Astrid vanished. Instead, Fishlegs stood in the kitchen.

               “Oh, hey,” Hiccup said casually.

               “You’ve been crossing again,” Fishlegs said, with all the damnation of accusing a recovering alcoholic of sneaking a drink.

               “Yes,” Hiccup said. “I told you, Fishlegs, I can’t help it. I don’t control what happens. It just happens.”

               “Okay,” Fishlegs said. “So…did you learn anything useful?”

               “I’m close to when Astrid died,” Hiccup said. “I’m in 1880. She seems happy. Everything seems normal. I don’t know what happened, but I’m going to find out.”

               “Just be careful, okay?” Fishlegs said. “I can’t run this show without you. You’re basically the backbone.”

               Hiccup chuckled nervously, and said, “I’ll do my best, Fishlegs. Don’t worry. Come October, we’ll be back in business. I just need some more time here.”

              

X

               Hiccup knew that his next crossing would be the revelation. He just knew it. He waited for it to happen, but it seemed that time itself had slowed. He tried to work on his book. He tried to reread his previous books for inspiration. He tried to clean.

               Nothing worked. All he could think about was Astrid. How and why had she died? He needed to know. So far, the fates that be had given him all the crossings he could handle, but one…two…three days ticks by without anything.

               Hiccup was losing it.

               He ticked away the time at his computer, answering questions on the online forums, and watching the cameras around the house. He’d saved a few clips of Astrid meandering about. Each time she appeared a white or gray blur on the screen, barely moving, always gliding.

               Astrid seemed to be keeping to herself, too. She appeared to him a few times, but never more than a few seconds at a time. That, too, bothered him. Why not stay and chat? Was she worried? Did she know what he would soon find out?

               On the fifth day without a crossing, Hiccup couldn’t sleep. He laid there on top of the covers, his mind a blurry mess of stress.

               Why hadn’t he gone back? Why leave him hanging?

               He groaned and rubbed his face; everything felt so twisted.

               A gentle footstep creaked across his threshold. Since he hadn’t left his door open, that only left one person who could enter without opening the door first.

               “Is that you?” Hiccup asked.

               Astrid appeared through his fingers. In the darkness of the room, she looked as real as she could have. The darkness and pale, filtered moonlight dappled her features in pebbled blue shadow. She sat down on the edge of the bed. He felt her weight upon it.

               “You and Eret were going to elope,” he said.

               She nodded.

               “But you didn’t,” he said.

               She pointed at him.

               “Me? What about me?”

               She pointed adamantly at him, a smile on her lips.

               “It’s not my fault,” Hiccup said, laughing. “You wanted to stay for your mother’s birthday.”

               She smiled mischievously.

               “Oh? Was that a lie?”

               She bit her lip.

               “It was? Why lie to Eret? He seemed like a good guy.”

               She nodded in agreement, then pointed at Hiccup.

               “Do you think I scared him off?” Hiccup asked. “I mean, I didn’t mean to haunt you, basically. I didn’t realize that would happen like that. It’s weird, you know, to think that you already knew me before I’d move in. I thought that I’d somehow mess up time by going back.”

               She scooted onto the bed and sat cross-legged beside him.

               “I guess…it was always supposed to happen the way it did?” Hiccup wondered aloud. “I was supposed to go back and you were supposed to see me? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Of course, I work in the paranormal field and what’s normal to me often sounds crazy to everyone else. It all boggles my mind.”

               Astrid smiled and leaned forward to ruffle a cool hand through his hair, as if to say, _don’t worry about it._

               Hiccup felt her touch as real as if he’d ruffled his own hair.

               Her hand lingered at his temple, but then, she vanished.

               He sat on the bed alone, on the Hofferson’s bedspread. Astrid no longer sat with him. From downstairs, he heard the strumming of several guitars. He swung his legs back over the bedside and stood. He walked toward the stairs, but paused at the sight of Astrid’s open bedroom door.

               He glanced inside; she wasn’t inside. Curious, he walked through the threshold. All of her things were still in place. A worrisome thought struck his heart – had she already died?

               No. A blue dress had been laid out on the bed. It was the dress that her ghost wore, the dress she would die in.

               Hiccup walked to the window where a strange light glowed. There seemed to be some sort of party behind the house, with candles and lanterns. People sang bluegrass-style songs to the guitars; someone stomped out a beat on what sounded like an upturned bucket.       

               A short gasp made him spin around. Astrid, just as she’d appeared a few days before, stood wide-eyed in her doorway.

               “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

               “I-I…” Hiccup started. “To be honest, I’m not sure.”

               “Who are you?”

               “You… can you hear me?”

She nodded, mouth gapping, eyes wide.

Hiccup hesitated; everything he did, she would remember. Her ghost already knew what happened here.

               “A friend,” he answered simply.

               “I’ve seen you,” she whispered.

               “I know,” he said. “I’ve seen you, too.”

               She didn’t seem to quite understand, but she didn’t question him.

               “Is it your mother’s birthday?”

               She nodded. “Yes.”

               “Who are all those people out there?”

               “Relatives,” she said. She stood frozen on the threshold. “They only come up once or twice a year. The winter months are too difficult to travel. They choose the warmer months.”

               “Makes perfect sense,” he said.

               They stood there a moment, staring at one another. Hiccup swallowed. Things had progressed. She heard him. He heard her. It was as if he belonged in this time.

               A chorus of melodic shouts came from the backyard.

               He asked, “It sounds like fun. Do you dance?”

               “Sometimes,” Astrid said. “I suspected I would be dancing more tonight, but it seems God had a different idea.”

               “What do you mean?”

               “My…” Astrid paused, then said, “fiancé wasn’t able to make it tonight. He had work.”

               “Eret,” Hiccup said. Astrid frowned at him. “I know.”

               “What are you?” Astrid said. “You’re a ghost, aren’t you?”

               “I’m not sure of that either,” Hiccup said. “To you, I might be.”

               The music paused, then changed into a lively tune.

               “Astrid, can I tell you something?”

               “I suppose.”

               “I’ve never really been a dancer. It wasn’t something that we did. We had dances, but I never went,” he said. “But…before I go again, may I have this dance?”

               He walked to the center of the room and held his hand out to her. Astrid looked partly petrified and partly intrigued. She glanced behind her and down the stairs, and then gingerly shut her bedroom door behind her.

               “How do I know you’re not here to do me harm?”

               “If I am a ghost, then I can’t,” he said.

               Astrid seemed to consider this. She took careful steps forward and then placed her hand in Hiccup’s. Her hand felt strange in his, real, but not real, like a pretend hand. He set his hand on her waist like he’d seen them do in old movies, and started to meander about the floor.

               Astrid let out a laugh.

               “What? Is it that bad?”

               “You’ve never danced before, have you?”

               He shook his head. “I told you I hadn’t.”

               “I’ll show you,” she said. She position his hand on her waist and set her own on his shoulder. “See your feet? You’re supposed to lead, but since I’m teaching, I’ll lead.”

               “What does that mean?”

               She laughed and rolled her eyes. “That means I’m leading the dance. I will move my feet first, and then you copy my movement. See? I move my left, you move your right with mine, like they’re connected at the toes.”

               “Oh, okay,” Hiccup said, watching her brown shoes move; he stepped with her.

               They moved slowly at first, one step at a time. It took him a while to get the hang of it. The music added a rhythm and he found it easier to step in time with it. Soon he and Astrid were dancing about her bedroom.

               “See? It’s not as hard as it looks,” Astrid said as the music died down and another started.

               “You’re right,” he said. They’d stopped dancing.

               He stood for a moment, still holding onto her hand and her waist, unsure of what to do.

               “This is typically the moment where the man parts with a kiss,” she whispered.

               He glanced down at her mouth; he’d already touched her hand and hadn’t destroyed space and time. What would a kiss hurt?

               Hiccup bent down and pressed his lips against hers. Despite the strange feeling of her lips not being entirely real, butterflies swarmed in his insides. Before the kiss had ended, she vanished from his touch. Hiccup opened his eyes to see her ghost, standing a short ways off, shimmering in the ambient moonlight that draped in from her bedroom window.

               She’d known what happened before he’d ever moved in.


	14. Chapter 14

“Do you remember that night?” Hiccup asked. “We danced?”

               She nodded. She stepped closer to him, and like he’d done before, he set one hand on her waist. He felt the soft material of her blue dress. She felt like she had before, real, but not real, like a dream-version of herself.

She slipped her cold hand into his and set the other on his shoulder.

               She looked almost alive. Yet, she looked as frail as moonlight. Her skin shimmed like light at the bottom of a pool. Her hair appeared as pale gold, liquid strands flowing about her face. When he touched her, her skin held a warmth he could not rightly justify. He began to lead, and as they silently danced about her bedroom floor, he caught whiffs of powder and perfume, sweet linen, vanilla, and sandalwood.

               For a short while, he had no idea what time he stood in, 1880 or 2016, and he didn’t mind either way. With Astrid, he didn’t mind where, when, or what might happen come morning. With her, nothing else mattered. He could stay, with her, like this, until time ended.

               They paused, and with more magnetism that before, Hiccup bent down to kiss her. Her lips felt as real as any he’d kissed, soft and supple against his own. She kissed him back; her tongue felt warm and welcoming. Her arms circled his middle. He traced the fine lines of her jaw and neck.

               Yes, Astrid Hofferson felt as real as any girl, and it was only when he thought about it, when he remembered, when he reminded himself that she was not. She had died, he told himself, a hundred and thirty years previous.

               Yet, he kissed her again, because he could, because he wanted to, and she kissed him back.

               When had he fallen for the dead girl? Honestly, he didn’t know. He had, however.

               Time didn’t matter, but at some point, Astrid pulled him back to the master bedroom. He laid down, utterly exhausted, but he was afraid to fall asleep. The next time he would cross would mostly likely be to witness the end of Astrid’s life, or as he had for Jacob, to attend her funeral. He’d rather not. He would rather stay, like this, with her, for a while longer.

               Astrid crawled onto the bed with him. The bed and blankets shifted with her touch. Without thinking, Hiccup pulled down the blankets beside him. Astrid, in all her shimmering light, wiggled underneath them. The blankets conformed to the shape of her legs and hips underneath; proof that she had joined him. Dead or not, she was there with him.

               Astrid settled, and Hiccup pulled her closer to him. He felt her warmth against his, felt the tickle of her hair on his chin, felt the fabric of her dress under his fingers. Her breath rose and fell in her chest. Her heart beat against his chest.

               With her pressed against him, he fell asleep.

 

X

 

               Hiccup woke up alone. The blankets beside him touched the bed; no sign that anyone else had joined him. He smoothed the wrinkles absently. Astrid had been there… hadn’t she? Yes, he had fallen asleep with her.

He got out of bed and pushed back the curtains to the window. Bright, midmorning daylight streamed inside.

               How long had he been sleeping?

               Hiccup made his way downstairs to the kitchen where his life-saving coffee pot sat waiting. He hadn’t any left from the night before, so he made a new pot. While it brewed, he walked around the house; he walked the stiffness out of his legs. By the time the coffee was finished, the stiffness had gone.

               He poured himself a cup of coffee, prepared for the sudden shift when the coffee pot would vanished, but he returned the carafe to the brewer without incident. He sipped the coffee and meandered into his office. He sat down and started to flip through his notes.

               Astrid Hofferson, died 1880, apparent suicide.

               Hiccup took a deep breath. The next time he went back, it would be closer to the day Astrid died. The day of, perhaps, and the entire idea filled him with dread. He knew she’d died. He knew that her body had been found in her room, hanging from the ceiling, but he didn’t want to see it any more than he wanted to see anyone else he knew dead.

Them being dead was one thing, but actually seeing them dead was another.

               He couldn’t avoid it any more than he could avoid his annual check-up. He’d have to get it done, like it or not, and it was for his own good. To find out what had happened to Astrid is what he’d wanted. It was his goal. It would be the ending to his book – before he would help her move on and reconcile the past.

               It’s what had to be done.

               After several sips of coffee, Hiccup turned on his computer. First, he checked his email. A few junk emails, promotions, social media updates, writer blogs he followed, and… an email from HesaCow45, simply titled “Read Me.”

               Hiccup didn’t know if HesaCow45 was trying to be funny or serious. Either way, he opened the email first.

              

               _Hiccup, I can’t believe what you’re going through. I say that as in I’m jealous, in awe, and worried. I wish I could be there and study you while it happens. It sounds utterly amazing to see. I’m also worried. Since there are no studies, it’s hard to say what the long-term effects are, if there are any. It sounds like you’re having trouble coping. I don’t know if it will be alright or not, so I won’t bore you with false hope. I simply don’t know enough about trans-time crossings._

_I can say, after speaking with some of my contacts, that these things are thought to happen around a central event, something connecting the person to whenever he’s going. You, for example, are going to a certain point in time. You are going back to some event that happened at that house. You’re going back for a reason. You may or may not know that reason yet. Some say that it’s a preordained happening. Can you tell? Can you see an impact you’ve had on the time line or has it stayed mostly the same?_

_My contacts seem to think that because you’re going back, each time a further along the time line, you’re getting closer to some pinnacle event. Once you get to that event, no one knows._

_Keep me informed. Tell me everything, no matter how insignificant you may think it. Every single detail, Hiccup, could be important._

 

               Hiccup sat there for a while, rereading the response. A pinnacle event? Surely, he meant Astrid’s death. Everything seemed to revolve around that moment. They didn’t know what would happen once he reached it… what did that mean? Would he see her death and be trapped there forever? Is that why no one claimed to experience the trans-time crossing? Because they were trapped in the past?

               Fears and doubts raged through his chest. What should he think?

               To quell those thoughts, he typed a response explaining that event as Astrid’s death, and how he didn’t think he’d effected the timeline. Astrid had known him before he’d arrived, he told him.

               Sending… sending… sent.

               Hiccup leaned back and took a deep breath. He swallowed a large gulp of coffee.

               He will go back. He will find out what happened to Astrid. He will help her remember. He will help her move on. He will write his book. He will move on, too, because, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, the Hofferson house had been tearing him apart from the start.

               Hiccup leaned forward and put his head into his hands.

               The front door opened – Hiccup sat up straight, ready to defend his home against intruders, but Astrid walked inside. His desk had been replaced with Randal Hofferson’s, and his books were gone. Hiccup stood up. At some strange point, his computer chair had been replaced with another – he hadn’t felt the shift underneath his own thighs.

               Astrid wore the blue dress, the same as her ghost. Her hair was loosely braided over her shoulder and loose strands fluttered about her face… just like her ghost.

               Hiccup’s heart fell into his stomach. She would die today.

               Astrid walked into the foyer and closed the door. She turned to head up the stairs; she spotted Hiccup. He must have looked worrisome, for she asked quietly, “Are you alright? You look sick?”

               What should he do? Tell her than she’s about to die?

               Hiccup had no words. His own breath caught and fumbled in his throat. Astrid took a step toward him, worry between her eyes.

               “Astrid?” Randal’s voice came from upstairs. “Is that you?”

               “Yes, it’s me,” she answered.

               “Come upstairs.”

               Randal didn’t sound happy.

               Astrid started upstairs and Hiccup followed on legs that felt like lead. At the top of the stairs, Astrid paused. She looked nervous. Her father, or uncle, Randal stood in her bedroom, holding a leather-bound book. 

               “What are you doing?” Astrid asked at once. She stopped in the threshold.

               “What is this?” Randal spat, pointing at the journal.

               “That’s my _private_ journal,” Astrid said, gripping her skirt.

               “I can see that,” he spat. “I’m talking about what is in it!”

               Astrid look beyond invaded… embarrassed and exposed. She glanced at Hiccup’s reflection in the vanity mirror.

               “ _I saw him again last night_ ,” Randal read aloud from the journal, barely containing his anger. “ _I don’t know where he comes from. He just appears_.” Randal looked up at Astrid with a cold, livid stare. “Who the devil are you talking about?”

               “I-I…” Astrid started, but her father interrupted.

               He read on, “ _I went upstairs to fetch Mother’s present. He was standing at the window; we talked, and for the first time he didn’t vanish. He didn’t know how to dance, so I taught him_.”

               “Those are private thoughts!” Astrid shouted.

               “Private indeed,” Randal spat at her, looking wilder than he had before. “Who was up here! Who was in my house?”

               “No one!”

               “I can read, Astrid, someone was up here with you!”

               “No one was up here! I-I made it up,” Astrid cried.

               “Made it up… lies,” Randal spat. He clutched the journal. “You’ve been seeing this man, too?”

               “No, it’s not like that!”

               “I give you a good home, provide a life for you. I made sure that Eret had a fine job before he could have you. I made sure that you would have a good life here. This is how you repay me!” Randal threw the journal at Astrid. She threw her arms over head; the journal smacked into her folded arms and thunked to the floor. “You’re just like your mother! Whoring around the moment I leave the house! I could have married a nice girl from home, but no, I wanted an American wife.”

               “No, you don’t understand!”

               “Hussy! Whore! You’re a disgrace to the Hofferson name!”

               Astrid, nearly in tears, tore out of the room. Her father ran after her. Hiccup flattened himself against the wall to avoid being in the way. Astrid made it to the stairs. Her father reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

               She slid.

               Her father held her, then he let go.

               Astrid, already off balance, fell backward, down the stairs. Hiccup shut his eyes and winced at each thud, each clatter. When the terrible sound stopped, he opened them again. Randal stood at the top of the stairs, holding onto the banister as if he too might fall. He heaved each breath. Slowly, on legs that felt like water, Hiccup walked to the railing. Astrid lay by the door, staring lifelessly upwards. Her neck had been broken.

               “God,” Randal groaned. He stumbled backward and fell to the floor.

               Hiccup couldn’t move.

               Her father had killed her because of him. _He’d_ caused her death. By going back in time, by meeting her, he had caused her death. He sank to the floor.

               Hiccup was just as much to blame as her father. He might as well have pushed her himself.

               Randal, sobbing, picked himself up. On jerky limbs, he walked down the stairs. Hiccup watched helplessly as he carried his daughter’s body back up the stairs. He left her lying on the bed while he fetched a length of rope from downstairs. He fitted it to the light on the ceiling, and then he hauled his own daughter’s body upward. He fit the rope around her neck and let her hang.

               Randal picked up the discarded journal. He shut the bedroom door and left her there. He started down the stairs. Hiccup, unable to stay there knowing Astrid’s body hang just a short way from him, followed Randal. If he could, he would have pushed him down the stairs, too. Randal walked into the living room, to the fireplace, and lit a warm fire. When it roared, he tossed the leather-bound journal into the flames. At once, the pages curled and blackened.

               That’s why the journal wasn’t found, Hiccup thought.

               Once the journal was unrecognizable, Randal went outside, out back to the wood pile, and began to chop wood. Hiccup, who eagerly awaited his return to 2016, followed. He didn’t want to be in the house anymore.  

               The hooves of a carriage sounded out front. Randal paused his work and stood, axe in hand, with his back to the house.

               Hiccup walked out to see the carriage; Mrs. Hofferson exited. She walked to the house and went in the front door. Hiccup couldn’t move.

               Through the windows, he spotted Mrs. Hofferson moving about inside. Randal stood frozen in the yard, his hands trembling on the axe.

               A moment later, Mrs. Hofferson’s terrible, ear-splitting scream filled the house.

              

X

 

               Hiccup returned to his own time, but didn’t remember doing it. He’d stood in the Hofferson’s yard, unable to move, as Randal, summoned by his wife’s screaming, returned to the house. He couldn’t go back inside. He couldn’t face the scene that was no doubt playing. When he did look up, the carriage was gone; the woodpile was gone; and the shutters had changed colors.

               They thought she’d killed herself.

               She’d died because of him, because she’d talked to him, danced with him. If he hadn’t asked her to dance that night, would she have lived? Would the house be haunted?

               What had he done?

               Hiccup walked back into his house, _his house_ , as he’d moved in, and found it utterly empty. He meandered upstairs to Astrid’s closed bedroom door. The guest room door was also closed. He walked into the master bedroom and into the bathroom and left the door open. He knelt over the sink and washed his face in cold water.

               When he looked up, Astrid stood in the bedroom. Concern played over her fine features.

               “I know what happened,” Hiccup choked out. “I know how you died.”

               The crease in her brow vanished; surprise replaced her worry. She motioned, urging the news.

               Hiccup dried his face and dropped the towel on the counter. He turned to face Astrid as he told her, “Your father read your journal. You…talked about me. He thought…I’m so sorry, Astrid. He thought you were seeing someone else, someone besides Eret, but you were talking about me. He shouted…he…you slipped.” His voice cracked.

               Astrid ran into the bathroom and slipped her hand into his. She laced her fingers with his and her other hand curled around his upper arm.

               “You fell down the stairs,” he said. “Your father blamed himself and made it look as though you’d killed yourself.”

               Astrid’s expression darkened. She might have remembered, or she might have simply accepted his word as truth. Either way, she seemed to shrink. She laid her head on his shoulder.

               “I’m so sorry,” Hiccup said again. He repeated it several times. “If it hadn’t been for me…none of this…you’d be alive. You would have married Eret and lived a fine life. You wouldn’t have been stuck here for so long. You wouldn’t have suffered like this…it’s my fault.”

               Astrid’s hand moved from his arm to his chest. She placed it over his heart and stood so that her eyes met his downcast eyes. Even though she should despise him, nothing in her warm gaze suggested she held him accountable for anything. She touched his cheek and ran her thumb along his cheekbone.

               “Why aren’t you mad?”

               She smiled. Her lips moved softly, and a sweet, ghost of a sound met his ears, “It was worth it.”


	15. Chapter 15

Hiccup sat in the living room across from Astrid. If not for the gentle shimmer of her skin, undulating light, he would have guessed her a living person. She glanced up at him.

               “I don’t know what else to do,” Hiccup said aloud, mostly to her. Fishlegs had gone into town, so he didn’t worry about being overheard.

               Astrid’s shoulders rose and fell.

               Hiccup had spent the morning talking Astrid through what had happened; she now knew how she had died. She knew who’d been involved. Yet, she hadn’t passed on.

               “Is there anything else, anything at all, that is bothering you?”

               She blinked at him; a sadness filled her eyes.

               “Anything at all that’s keeping you tethered here?”

               She glanced down at her hands and began to fidget with the sleeve of her dress.

               “Let’s try this,” Hiccup said, speaking with his hands. “Close you eyes. Clear you mind. Think of your family that’s waiting for you on the other side. Friends, pets, everyone that you knew; your brothers are there, Robert and Willie, your uncle, your mother, and Eret, too. They’re all waiting for you. They’ll be delighted to see you. There’s… a door in front of you. You can walk to it. Once you go through, you can’t come back, but it’s glorious on the other side, bright light and sunshine and fresh air.” Hiccup paused; her face had relaxed. “Your hand is on the doorknob. You can walk through right now, but there’s something behind you. It’s this world. What is behind you that you can’t leave? What is holding you here? What will you miss?”

               She opened her eyes. She pointed at him, and her ghostly voice said, “You.”

               He choked.

               He’d thought it, but he hadn’t voiced it.

               “Astrid,” he said. “I-I don’t know…”

               “I know,” she said, like a whisper behind him. She looked down at her hands.

               “Don’t feel guilty about it,” Hiccup said. “It’s mostly my fault.”

               They sat in silence. Then, a ding on the computer signaled an incoming email. For something to do, Hiccup walked into the office expecting another bogo deal or social update. Instead, he saw an email from HesaCow45.

               Astrid followed him into the office.

               “This guy might know something,” Hiccup said. He sat down to read the email.

 

_You know how they say you can read a lot about a person in how they write? It’s no joke, Hiccup. You’ve fallen in love with that ghost, haven’t you? By the sounds, she’s fallen for you. You’re adding wood to the fire. Love is a tricky mistress, but I’m not the one to tell you not to. I’m sure you didn’t mean to. It happens like that. Likely, she can’t move on with you there. My best suggestion to you is to leave the house. Let the ghost forget about you and let her move on. It’s best for both of you._

 

               Hiccup glanced at Astrid; she stood away from the computer. She still didn’t like the technology. She hadn’t read the email, at least. Hiccup, hoping HesaCow45 might still be sitting at his computer, typed up:

 

_You’re right. We know how she died. I’ve told her, but she’s still here. I should want her to move on, that’s best for her and me, but I don’t. I don’t want her to leave. She doesn’t want to leave, either. I’ve sunk a big portion of my savings into this house. I’m not sure I could even sell it. I can’t leave it. Not now. I’ve gotten used to her, and her to me, and I’m not sure where to go from here. She’s a ghost, I know, it would never work out. We couldn’t go out or date. I’d hate to think of introducing her to my parents. They’d lock me up in the crazy house for sure. It will sound crazy, I know, but I’d rather just stay here forever with her._

 

               Sending…sending…sent.

 

               Only after he sent it did he realize how crazy it would sound. Luckily, HesaCow45 dealt in crazy and the paranormal. He wouldn’t call the nuthouse. Not like his father would. He could just see his disbelief and anger if Hiccup were to tell him how he’d fallen in love with a girl, only to lower the bomb by saying it was the ghost in his house. So much for grandkids.

               “Who are you talking to?”

               Hiccup, used to her soft chime, looked up. Astrid sat in the chair, curiously watching him.

               “It’s a man, or a woman, that lives…somewhere. I met him online. Its, uh, complicated to explain to someone, but it’s like…a machine, like my computer here, that allows people from all over the world to access the same places. They’re not real places, they’re virtual places. You can’t physically go, but you can say things and see people. Anyone with a computer can access the internet, that’s another word for ‘online.’”

               She nodded, bottom lip between her teeth. “It sounds like magic.”

               “It’s not, it’s all science and…electrical,” Hiccup said. “It probably appears like magic to you, but believe me, it’s completely man-made and non-magical.”

               “And this person is online?”

               “He lives somewhere else in the world,” Hiccup said. “I don’t know. He might live in the states, or even overseas.”

               “You talk to him?”

               “Yes,” Hiccup said, awed at her amazement. “I can talk live or through messages to anyone, anywhere in the world through the internet.”

               “Amazing.”

               “It is,” Hiccup said. “It’s like sending a letter to someone, but instead using the post office and waiting a month for a rely, it goes straight to the receiver and appears almost instantly.”

               An email appeared, followed by the signaling chime. HesaCow45 had written back.

               “See? He’s sent me back a letter, or an email, it stands for ‘electronic mail.’ He’s sent it just now. It’s like we’re having a conversation over the thousands of miles between us.”

               He clicked on the email.

              

_I’m sorry. I’m also happy that you’ve found love, but I’m sorry it’s so complicated. I might have some helpful information, but…I’m hesitant. It’s the risky kind of information. It’s the kind that’s been locked away and forgotten. It’s the kind that people were burned at the stake for knowing, and killed on sight for practicing. It’s not ‘evil’ exactly. Magic itself is neutral. People use it in evil ways. Yes, I said magic. It’s magic. It’s paranormal. Whatever word suits your needs of understanding. It’s the dangerous kind that if done wrong can have dire consequences. Before I even tell you, I need your written word that you will never, under any circumstances, repeat it to anyone else, be it a person, blog, your diary, your dog, or especially in a book._

 

               Hiccup reread the message twice. Magic? No, no, he didn’t do that kind of paranormal. He believed in solid evidence. Right? Hiccup cast a glance toward the ghost standing nearby, gazing at the computer in a strange mixture of awe and caution. Totally logical and reasonable. He replied:  

 

_Okay. I promise I will keep anything said in this email to myself. I will take it to my grave._

 

               His skin prickled. He knew HesaCow45 had strange knowledge, but he’d only dribbled it out in small doses.

 

               The rely came back:

 

_There’s an old ritual that can bring a person back from the dead. It’s old, very old. I’ve never seen one work. I’ve heard about them. I’ve heard about them going well, and I’ve heard about them going horrible wrong. Hiccup, this is serious. This is a serious decision. If you decide to go through with this, I want to personally see the ritual done._

 

               “What?” Hiccup said to the screen.

               Astrid straightened her shoulders and stared at him.

               Clearing his throat, Hiccup quickly typed:

 

_Can I tell Astrid about it? Since it’s her we’re talking about?_

 

               A few moments later, the response came:

 

_Yes, I suppose. She does have a right to know._

 

               “Astrid,” Hiccup said, unsure of how it would go over. “This person I’m talking to. They know things. A lot of things about the paranormal world that I don’t. They have a way, an old ritual he says, that might be able to…uh…” he gulped. “Bring you back from the dead.”

               Her face lost its expression and became a stoic mask. She blinked at Hiccup as though he’d spoken in a different language.

               “I-I know, it sounds crazy a-and bazaar and terrible…I-I tell him no,” Hiccup said. He started to type.

               Astrid’s pale hand grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand from the keyboard. She looked bewildered and terrified; if he could hear her heart beat, surely it would be a wild sound. Hiccup wiggled his fingers into hers – they felt strangely real and strangely not – and looped his other arm around her waist. He couldn’t possibly describe how it felt to hold her. He felt the texture of her dress, but not the warmth a human would normally give off; he felt the chill of her breath on his face, but it felt like a puff of air, not a breath. Her entire being felt electric, as though a current passed through her, buzzing and shaking.

               He said, “Astrid, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. I know this isn’t comfortable for you. This isn’t something that Fishlegs and I do. We’re scientific in our approach. We use evidence, not magic.”

               “What does he say?” she asked. She bit her lip. “It sounds crazy, like magic, but… we should at least hear him out.”

               “Are you sure?”

               She nodded. “I’m not committing to anything. I’m not signing a blood pact by hearing what he’s to say.”

               Hiccup nodded his agreement. “Alright. We can always change our minds. But, he’s also warned us that anything we talk about is strictly a secret. To the grave kind of secret.”

               “Already done,” Astrid said, a smile appearing on her face.

               “Oh… I-I didn’t mean…”

               “I know what you meant,” she said, smiling. Her lips brushed against his cheek in a soft whisper of a kiss. “You’re the only person I talk to.”

He leaned forward and kissed her cool cheek. He said, “Even if there is the smallest chance we could get your life back, I want to hear what he has to say. But, Astrid, I won’t force you into anything, or make you do anything you’d rather not. I’ll get your permission before I agree to anything. Okay?”

               A fierce determination came over her eyes, and she said, “Okay.”            

               Hiccup sat down at the computer with Astrid behind him. He typed a response:

              

_Okay. Astrid knows. We want to hear what you’ve got to say._

 

               The response took a while to come. While they waited, Astrid gradually came closer to the computer, until she stood behind Hiccup. She sat her hands on his shoulders. When the email signal chimed, her hands tightened, then loosened.

 

_It’s tricky. The book is old and in a language no one speaks anymore. I’ve been able to translate it into another language that is spoken in remote parts by monks and shamans; I’ve translated it into my language with some help, and it’s a trick process. You need things. First, a site out of sight. It needs to be dark, like a cave or an inside bathroom without any windows, or even a cellar. It needs to be enclosed and dark. Second, you need her bones. You said there was a cemetery on the property, right? It’ll be easier to go grave robbing if it’s your own land. Third, you’ll need something of hers to connect her soul to. She’d there with you, right? Shouldn’t be to hard to find something. Fourth, and probably the easiest, you’ll need clean water. Get one of those water filters, filter the water, then boil it. It’s rather like a recipe. You must let it strew for three days. There’s some other things, but I’d rather do that myself; it’s complicated. What do you say, Hiccup? Worth a try? Even if we get to the point of no return and you want to back out, that’s fine. We’ll just have a cup of tea and chat instead._

 

               Astrid, having read the email, said, “A cave, bones, and boiled water? It sounds like magic.”

               “It might be,” Hiccup said. “But, like he said, we can think about it, talk about it, and back out if we change our minds.”

               “Is he coming here?”

               Hiccup scanned the emails. “He might be.”

               Hiccup sent a quick email back:

 

               _Are you coming here? Do you need directions?_

_Yes. I don’t have a cellular phone. I won’t be able to contact you once I leave my house. And, before we make plans, you are sure?_

_Sure. Here’s my address. I’ve added some directions. The rural roads a bit wonky. Some don’t have proper signs._

 

               Hiccup sent along the email with the inclusion of his mailing address with his own directions from town. He didn’t know what path HesaCow45 would choose. To be honest, he felt apprehensive; he’d invited a total stranger into his home. He didn’t even know HesaCow45’s real name.

               “I just invited a stranger to my home to preform an ancient ritual to bring a ghost back to life,” Hiccup said aloud.

               “When you say it like that, you do sound a bit mad,” Astrid said.

 

X

 

               Fishlegs returned in a good mood. When he spotted Hiccup on the couch, he paused.

               “Hey, Fishlegs,” Hiccup said, proving that he was in 2016.

               “Oh, good,” Fishlegs said, heaving a sigh. His eyes drifted to the spot on the couch beside Hiccup where Astrid sat. “Is she there with you?”

               “Yes,” Hiccup said. “What do you see?”

               “It’s shimmering,” Fishlegs said, looking at Astrid. She looked back. “It’s kind of like a radiant glow, like a nightlight, you know the one I used to have. It wasn’t a light, it was covered in this film stuff.”

               “Can he hear me?” Astrid said.

               “I don’t think so,” Hiccup answered.

               “You don’t think what?” Fishlegs screwed up his brows.

               “She spoke.”

               “She spoke?” Fishlegs said, eyes wide. “I-I wasn’t listening properly!”

               Hiccup glanced at Astrid and nodded toward Fishlegs, who’s turned his head to the side. His eyes had gone out of focus as he concentrated.

               “Can he hear me?” Astrid repeated.

               “It’s like… someone whispering in the other room,” Fishlegs said. “I can’t make out any of the words.”

               “I would shout if it could,” she said.

               “There,” Fishlegs said. “She’s talking again.”

               Hiccup chuckled. “She said she would shout if she could.”

               Over dinner, which Astrid joined them for, although she didn’t eat anything, Hiccup briefed Fishlegs on HesaCow45’s visit; he left out the tricky details of the resurrection part.

               “He’s coming here?” Fishlegs said. He, like Hiccup, held the stranger with a high regard and fearful admiration. “ _Here_? As in your house?”

               “Yes,” Hiccup said.

               “But…why?” Fishlegs said. “I mean, I get this house is cool, and the whole trans-time thing was weird, but…is that worth the trip?”

               Hiccup inhaled; his hesitation spoke for him.

               “What is he coming here for?” Fishlegs asked slower.

               “I told him about what’s been going on,” Hiccup said, looking at Astrid. “I know how Astrid died, I told her, but she’s still here. That’s not what is keeping her here. I am.”

               “Wait, what?” Fishlegs blinked several times. “Hiccup…?”

               “I know, it’s crazy,” Hiccup said. “But, he’s got a way that…he knows about this thing…that might…help her.”

“Help her how?”

Hiccup hesitated, words dribbled on his tongue like a confession. “…bring her back.”

               “To life?” Fishlegs whispered, his voice creaked.

               “Yes.”

               Fishlegs went pale. He stared at Hiccup as though he hadn’t met him before. When at last he spoke, he didn’t sound at all enthused. “No, no, Hiccup, I don’t like this. It’s not a good idea.”

               “We’re not saying we’re going through with it,” Hiccup said. “But he is coming here and we’re going to talk about it. If it’s too-too, we’ll pull out.”

               Fishlegs didn’t look convinced. “Hiccup, part of our motto is that we use science, not all that magic stuff to communicate with ghosts. This…back to life thing…it sounds like something those nutcases that do seances would do.”

               Hiccup nodded. “I know, I understand your skepticism, trust me. But… I want to hear what he’s got to say. I need to know if it can be done. I mean, I wouldn’t have believed it either. I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told be about these trans-time crossings, either. I mean, six months ago, if you’d have told me, I’d have laughed in your face. But…things have changed.”

               “Things have changed,” Fishlegs said. He stood. “You’ve changed, Hiccup. This house has changed you. I’m not sure if I like it or not. Go ahead and do what you think you must, but I’m not going to stick around and watch you summon demons.”

               Fishlegs retreated out of the kitchen. Hiccup sat still and listened to him walk up the stairs and go into the guest room. He started to pack up his things.

               “That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped,” Hiccup said.

               Astrid reached for his hand and held it between hers. “He’s afraid. He is your friend. He is worried about you.”

               “I’m worried about me, too.”


	16. Chapter 16

The next day, Hiccup helped Fishlegs carry his stuff to his car. With a short goodbye, Fishlegs backed down the drive and started home. Hiccup stood on the porch and watched until he couldn’t see the blue of the car. Had he done the right thing? He glanced over his shoulder at Astrid. She stood in the doorway, a wistful look on her face, not unlike how she’d watched Eret leave. She met his gaze and smiled.

               Hiccup sat down on the top step. Would things have been different if he and Astrid had been born in the same time? Would they have felt the same toward one another? Would he have been a contender for her hand? If she had been born in his time, would they have met? Been friends? Been lovers? Would she have gone in a different direction in her life? Would their paths even have crossed?

               Still, doubt plagued his mind. If he hadn’t gone back in time and met her, she would not have thought herself mad, wrote about it to her journal, and her father wouldn’t have gotten angry at her – he wouldn’t have shouted – he wouldn’t have accidently killer her.

               Truthfully, if their paths hadn’t crossed, things would have worked out better for her. Maybe for him, too. He didn’t know.

               Expect, Hiccup didn’t know what he would have done for work in 1880. He could have written, but the paranormal wasn’t a popular genre to work in back then. He might have been seen as a witch and burned at the stake, like HesaCow45 said. He liked books, nonetheless, and might have found a nice career in the local library. He could have been a reporter. Maybe he could have written stories regardless. Historical books. Travel books.

               Astrid appeared beside him, a shimmer in the sunlight. Still, her voice sounded beside him, ghostly and sweet, “What are you thinking about?”

               “I’m thinking about what profession I would have been in had I been born in your time,” he said. “I doubt ‘paranormal writer’ would have gone very far.”

She smiled and shook her head. “You don’t know. You might have revolutionized the field. Been a pioneer in the study. Written the books that others looked to for guidance.”

Hiccup thought of the books HesaCow45 supposedly horded. He imagined his name across a worn leather tone in gold, almost faded, with yellowed, even pages that whispered of wisdom and forgotten knowledge. He liked the idea.

“When is your other friend arriving?”

“I wish I knew,” Hiccup said. He both looked forward to and dreaded HesaCow45’s visit. The person behind the screenname was a mystery – Hiccup didn’t know what to expect. He had no name, age, gender, or even a country of origin – he had nothing. He barely had a personality. HesaCow45 was smart, intelligent, and had a wide understanding and knowledge of the paranormal. Hiccup felt both intimidation and awe toward the person.

Hiccup stretched his neck. All this worry tensed the muscles there. He could use that yoga class he’d taken in college (he needed a course worth one credit, and it seemed the easier choice than the kickboxing class.)

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Hiccup said, hand on his shoulder. “I’m just stressed. A lot has happened in a short amount of time, and I’m not used to it. I think I need to move around and work some of it off. There’s some things in the house I’ve been putting off and stuff I haven’t unpacked. I think I’ll do that today. I’m too worked up to write anything.”

“Then let’s go,” Astrid said, standing. She walked to the front door and beckoned him inside.

Hiccup obeyed her summons, and followed her in to the house. While waiting for HesaCow45’s visit, he tidied up the house. He did minor repairs and maintenance that he’d been putting off, and made a list for future repairs, restorations, and alterations that would require further supplies. He went from room to room noting walls to be painted, molding to be replaced, the slow drain in the guest bathroom, and the cracked mantel in the upstairs parlor. All the while, Astrid walked with him. She told him about each room, its prior uses, tenants, and stories from her childhood.

“My brother Robert spent most of his days in here,” Astrid said of the sunny second-floor parlor. She gestured to the balcony doors. “Mother thought the sunlight and fresh air would do him good and treat his poor health. It didn’t, as you know.”

Hiccup hesitated, then asked, “Do they know what he died from?”

Astrid shook her head. “No. Robert was a sickly child from the moment he entered the world. He slept most of the day, coughed and wheezed when he was awake.”

Hiccup tried to think of some condition that would fit that descriptions, but none came. He’d never done well in the biology and health classes.

“See this mark?” Astrid ran her slender fingers along the painted paneling. Hiccup looked closer and saw where a long dent had been painted over. “I was up here reading one afternoon. I’d been up here a while when my mother found me. She scolded me for skipping chores and threatened to burn all the books I had. I can’t remember the rest. We fought and argued. I threw the book I had and it hit here.”

They finished the upstairs and wandered down to the kitchen. Hiccup refilled his coffee cup. He leaned back to sip it when he noticed Astrid standing at the table.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She looked to him, and at once the worried look vanished from her face. She said, “Of course, I just… remembered. I’ve been remembering a lot these past few days.”

Did he have something to do with that? His brain, heart, and gut agreed; he had everything to do with it.

“What do you remember?”

“In here,” Astrid said, motioning in the general direction of the table. “I watched my mother poison herself.”

Hiccup choked; he gasped, “What?”

“I was… already like this. I watched my parents grow older. Father lost most of his hair. My mother turned gray. I sat beside her every morning, and I think she knew I was there, sometimes. She grew worse as she aged. Her sorrow grew like weeds. One day, while my father was outside, she poisoned herself. She was sick. My father took her into town. He came home without her.”

“I’m sorry,” Hiccup said. He sat his cup down and walked to her. He reached for her arm; he felt the warm of her and the coldness of her ghostly skin. As he focused on her, his touched felt solid on her arm. He pulled her into an embrace and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She held gingerly onto his middle. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

Astrid exhaled into his shoulder. Her cool breath seethed through his shirt. “I expected to watch my parents grow old and eventually die. I just thought I would also be growing older.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It must have been lonely.”

She didn’t answer; she didn’t have to. He knew. He didn’t _know_ , but he could imagined.

“It’s been nice having you here,” she said.

“It’s been nice being here,” he said, and it had. Regardless of how stressful it had been.

He laced his fingers with hers. He didn’t want her to be lonely anymore. She didn’t deserve it. She deserved to be loved and held and warm for a century, or two. However long forever was. Hiccup leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead.

“You’ve still gone some to unpack,” she said quietly.

He didn’t argue; hand in hand, they walked into the living room where he still had a dozen boxes unopened. It was nothing necessary, mostly plates, dishes, more towels, extra sheets, clothes, a few knickknacks; he unpacked it and carried it where it needed to be, for Astrid couldn’t hold onto things for very long without it slipping right through her hands. Hiccup flattened the cardboard and set them beside the trash. He’d slice them up on trash day.

“Have you been to the cellar?” Astrid asked. She pointed to the paneled door in the little alcove between the pantry and the backdoor.

“Once. The woman that I bought the house from refused to go down there. I just looked down the stairs.”

“Well, the ghost is up here, so it’s not haunted,” Astrid said, smiling. “It’s not pleasant, though.”

Hiccup opened the door and turned on the light, a singular, bare lightbulb on the ceiling. It wasn’t a full basement; it was the size of the kitchen. Like the attic, the basement had that unfinished look. The floor was packed dirt in most places, with loose wooden boards and plywood draped over it. He climbed the wooden stairs one at a time, and stopped halfway down.

               “Mother stored food there. It wasn’t spacious enough to play, and she was afraid that we would break the jars,” Astrid explained from the top of the stairs.

               “Any stories of the attic?”

“It was supposed to be Willie’s room,” Astrid said. “Then my father wanted to turn it into a study. Eret stayed up there when he lived here.”

Hiccup started back up the stairs and switched off the light, drenching the basement again in darkness. He reached for the broom handle and grasped it lightly. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about him.”

“Eret?”

               He nodded.

               “I can’t say that I didn’t love him,” Astrid said. “Or, I thought I did. But…it wasn’t the same. Not like you. He was a way out of my house, a way into womanhood. He had a stable job. A house. I could move to the city. I could talk to him. He never yelled or laid a hand on me. He was…a good man. He would have been a good husband. But, he is in the past.”

               “Do you miss him?”

“I did for a while,” Astrid said. “But it wore off. I…fell out of love, I guess. I heard my parents talking…after I’d died. I remember them talking about him marrying. He’d had children. He came out to see them a few times with his children. Delightful little people, lovely, too. His wife never came.”

               “I’m sorry,” Hiccup said. “I can’t imagine how that must have been.”

                “It was strange,” she said, sitting down at the table. “I didn’t know what had happened at first. I remember waking up outside. I came back into the house, but no one could hear me or see me. I tried to throw a cup, but my hand went through it. It wasn’t something that I ever thought I’d have to ask myself.”

               Hiccup laced his fingers with hers. She’d gone through something terrible. She’d been stuck in an invisible world while her parents grew old, died, and strangers moved into her house, time and time again. She’d suffered…all because of him, because he’d gone back in time, because of some force neither could control or understand.

               “It is not your fault,” she said.

               “It feels like it,” he said. “Everything that happened to you it was because I’d gone back. I just wish I understood why.”

               “Isn’t it obvious?”

               He blinked at her.

               “If everything happens for a reason, what reason would there be for all of this to have happened?”

               “I don’t know.”

               She squeezed his hand, though not with the same force than a human would normally give. She said, “So that we could be here, right now, just as we are.”

               He thought that over for a moment. Was she right? Had it all been part of some overall picture? Were they supposed to have done everything they’d done? All so that they could meet, that he could move into this house, so that they could be sitting in the kitchen waiting on some mysterious stranger to bring her back to life?

               It sounded like something from a fiction book. Chuckling at the thought, he said, “You know, I’m thinking about whether or not my next book should be fiction or nonfiction.”

               “The book you’re writing about me?”

               “Yes,” he said. “Think about it. If this ritual works and you…come back, I can’t rightly put that into a nonfiction book. People will think I’m crazy. That’s not something I can boast about. I’ll have to make up another ending, something more believable. But, this story, our story, could be told through the fictional lens. I mean, who doesn’t love a good paranormal romance?”

               “We’re writing a romance?” If he wasn’t mistaken, a ghostly tint of blush appeared on her pale cheeks.

               “I am,” he said. “I didn’t set out to, but it’s how it’s gone. Of course, if it doesn’t work out, and the ritual fails, I’m not sure if I could write such a book.”

               “Why not?”

               “I’d be devastated.”

               “Hiccup,” she said.

               A knock landed on their front door. A heavy knock followed, then another. Three knocks. Hiccup looked at Astrid, and together they stood. She followed him to the door. He braced himself for whatever happened next.

He opened the door.

               “Hiccup?”

               Hiccup had been unprepared to receive his visitor, fearing someone dark and gloomy and utterly terrifying, but the forty-something year old man standing on his porch was, for lack of a better word, _cool_.    He stood tall with dark brown, almost black, hair tied back behind his head. The end of the ponytail reached his shoulder blades. He was handsome in an old-movie kind of way, with a square jaw and strong brow. His skin was golden brown. He wore blues jeans and a button down flannel shirt over a black t-shirt. His eyes were piercing blue, almost gray.

               “Yes?” Hiccup asked.

               “You’re Hiccup?” he asked. He smiled, a genuine, friendly smile. The man stepped forward and embraced Hiccup in a brotherly embrace. “It’s good to finally meet you, in person, at least.”

               He had an accent, subtle but present. Hiccup couldn’t identify it. Italian, maybe, or a little eastern European.

               “You’re… HesaCow45?”

               “That’s me, though it’s pronounced _coow_ , long _o_ , but that’s alright,” he said, stepping inside. He glanced about the house. “Wow, this house is amazing. There’s history in here.” He walked toward the stairs and stopped as though he’d stepped on a nail. He stared hard at the floor, then pointed at it, and asked, “This is where she died?”

               Hiccup nodded. “Yeah…how did you…?”

               “It’s complicated,” he said. “My name is James, by the way.”

               Hiccup led James about the house, answering any questions he had about the activity; it felt strange to explain it with Astrid following them. Once or twice James glanced in her direction as if he saw her. Hiccup wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

They arrived at the guest room and James took stock of the clean space.  

               “Ah, this will due,” he said. “It’s been a long few days; I suggest we hold off until the morning to discuss the matter at hand any further.”

               Hiccup nodded in agreement.

               “I see why you fell for her,” James said. “She’s quite lovely.”

               Hiccup glanced behind him where Astrid stood in the hallway. She looked between Hiccup and James with suspicion.

               “Can you see her?” Hiccup asked.

               “I can, now and then, glimpses as she moves,” James said, glancing toward where Astrid stood. “You can see her fully, then?”

               “Yes.”

               “You’ve built up quite a connection with her,” James said. “It takes a strong bond for a living person to see a ghost so clearly.”

               Hiccup half-expected him to toss the word love into the talk, but he didn’t. They parted ways for a while so James could get some much needed rest. Hiccup retreated down to the kitchen with Astrid close behind.

               “He’s not what I thought,” Hiccup said once they’d sat down.

               “What did you expect?”

               “Someone…creepier, I guess. Hesa…I mean, James, is normal. He’s cool even, for a paranormal nerd. I mean, I don’t want to talk bad about the community, but there are a lot of weird people in the paranormal field. I mean…people that think they can talk to the dead and tattoo pentagrams on their faces.”

               “That’s a bit extreme,” Astrid said.

               “We don’t do things like that,” Hiccup said. “Which is why Fishlegs was against us doing this thing. We founded our site and our names in the field on science, on real evidence, not some he-said-she-said nonsense that we couldn’t prove. We wanted to show that there is something happening.”

               “And you’ve done well,” she said.

               Hiccup took her compliment, then thought about it. He said, “How much do you know about what we do?”

               “From my experience with you,” she said simply. “You were respectful, kind, and sweet. I’ve met others that want to speak with the dead. They came in here and spoke in misty voices. They heard sounds that I didn’t make and this old woman spoke for me, though I never spoke to them.”

               “Those types aren’t ghost hunters,” Hiccup said. “They’re in it for the show. Did they bring a crowd of people with them?”

               She thought back, then nodded. “Yes.”

               “They came for the show,” Hiccup said. “It’s all an act. They go into these haunted places and make sure that their guests get the frights they want.”

               “They’re charlatans.”

               “That’s exactly what they are,” he said. “It’s because of people like that, who make ghost hunting a show, that it’s hard for people like me and Fishlegs to find credibility. People lump us in the same boat.”

               “Well, we will do this ritual and I can tell them all that you’re not,” she said.

               “Astrid, no,” Hiccup said, grabbing her hands. “Listen, if this works, and you come back, I think it’s best if we keep it to ourselves. If we come out saying that we brought someone back to life, people are going to come out of the woodwork with demands for proof and questions. They’ll want to haul you off to some lab and try to figure out how it works…and…it’s best if we don’t advertise this.”

               She took his words in and nodded. “Okay.”

               Hiccup and Astrid spent the day in his office, going over his book about the Hofferson house; he told her what he’d gotten down so far, and she would add her comments.

               “I was named after my father’s mother,” she said. “She didn’t travel to America with them. My father said she stayed because her own mother was ill, and she couldn’t bear to leave her. They wrote from time to time, but she wrote in Norwegian and I never learned to speak it. She spoke some English, but not much.”

               By the time the sun went down, Hiccup felt much more confident about The Hofferson House. Heather would be too, he expected.

               “We’ll have to work out an ending,” he whispered on his way upstairs to the bathroom. “I don’t want to lie in my books, but I’ll have to say you crossed over.”

               He’d have to explain to his nerdier fans that while the girl he’d been seen with did resemble the ghost of the Hofferson house, they were not the same; he’d met Astrid on a trip, or through a friend, and they’d connected.

               Hiccup shut the bathroom door while he showered, shaved, and readied himself for bed. When he opened the door, wearing his pajamas, he found Astrid waiting patiently on the bedside. And for another night, he fell asleep with her in his arms. This time, he woke up with her in them, too.

               He meandered down the stairs that next morning in good spirits. Then he spotted James at the table. He wore the same jeans and t-shirt. He’d already made a pot of coffee.

               “Good morning,” James said. “Come here and sit awhile. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”


	17. Chapter 17

Hiccup got himself a cup of fresh coffee, taking his time, and joined James at the table. Astrid sat down beside him. She looked the tiniest bit worried, apprehensive, maybe. Hiccup understood; he felt the same way. On the table were two dozen or so pieces of hand-made paper. On each was tiny, scribbled words in English; the scrawl covered every inch of the paper. Hiccup squinted, but the writing was too squished, to tiny for him to read – if it was really English and not a conglomeration of whatever language James spoke.

“Like I said,” James said, motioning to the paper, “it’s complicated.”

“Is it safe?” Hiccup said.

“I don’t know,” James said. “It sounds simple enough, but there is a lot that could go wrong. We’ll have to do everything exact.”

“Okay,” Hiccup said. He took a long drink from his coffee. “Did you take these notes yourself?”

James nodded. He shuffled them seriously. “The book the ritual comes from is ancient. One wrong tumble and it’s in several pieces. I’m not risking taking it through airport security. Good thing, too. I saw the way they toss luggage about like it’s full of air. Besides, the book weights about…oh, I’d say fifty pounds or so. Like I said, it’s a big book. I didn’t want to cause a stir with it. It’s written in a dead language, so I thought it safer to bring my own translation.”

A ritual in a dead language to bring back a dead girl. Sure. Okay. Why not.

“Okay,” Hiccup said. “What do we have to do?”

“First, and this part is important,” James said, he met Hiccup’s eyes, “we need a location. It needs to be dark, quiet, and away from anything that might disturb it, like animals or people.”

Hiccup looked to Astrid and she looked blankly back at him.

A dark space that wouldn’t be disturbed…

“Like a bathroom?” Hiccup suggested. “I don’t use the one downstairs that much. The window is small, we could cover it with foil.”

“One wrong move,” James said. “Should the foil fail, the ritual is ruined.”

“The cellar,” Astrid said beside him.

Hiccup glanced over James’s shoulder to the cellar door. It was dark down there, and quiet, and as far as he knew he didn’t have a rodent problem.

“What did she say?” James twisted to see what Hiccup saw.

“The cellar,” Hiccup said.

“The cellar would work,” James said. “Windows?”

“No. And there haven’t been animals as far as I know. I didn’t see any droppings when I was down there.”

“However, then there is the problem of the container,” James said. “We need some kind of container big enough for a person to fit into…think of it like a womb for a grown human, like a large bathtub or some similarly shaped thing, unless you feel up to digging a hole in your basement floor.”

“It’s a dirt floor,” Hiccup said.

“Oh?” James said, glancing up from his notes. “That’ll do, then. And we can fill it back up when we’re done.”

“How do we know that this won’t create some sort of portal in my basement?”

“That’s not how portals work,” James said simply. “They’re much less complicated and less focused. If this thing creates a portal, I will shave my head and eat my own hair.”

Astrid scrunched her lips, and said, “Disgusting.”

James glanced at Astrid, eyebrows raised. He blinked a few times before he said, “That is how sure I am. Then, if it goes well, there is the matter of the water.

It needs to be clean water. Not tap water or water from the stream. We’ll need to filter it and then boil it. After that, well, I can’t really explain it fully, but I will take care of some extra precautions after that step.”

“What kind of extra precautions?” asked Hiccup.

“Mostly of the protection sort,” James said. “Runes to keep out anything that we don’t want to come nosing around, like stray spirits. Don’t you worry, Hiccup. It’s nothing vile or evil. I won’t destroy your house. If I do mess up, I’ll build you another one with my own hands.”

Hiccup swallowed. Fishlegs had been right about it sounding like something the frauds would cook up. Yet, the back part of his mind tease about the reality of it, the truth strung between the fat lies and inflated stories. Hiccup was glad, then, that Fishlegs hadn’t stuck around. If something did go wrong, he didn’t want Fishlegs to be in trouble, too. Maybe he should write letters to his family just in case it did go wrong.

“And then there is the matter of the bones,” James said. “Her bones, to be exact. We’ll need all of them. Every single bone.”

Astrid shifted beside him. She said, “Luckily they’re all out back, isn’t it?”

“You mentioned the family graveyard,” James said. “She’s there?”

“She is,” Hiccup nodded.

“Good,” James said. “One of us can see to the bones while the other is working with filling the container. Once we’ve her bones, we put them into the full container. Once the bones have been added, no more water can be added; the book made that very clear. Don’t ask me why. After that, we let the bones sit for a short while, an hour or two. Then, we need a personal item of hers, or two, even three. Something that she is familiar with.”

Hiccup thought, but he hadn’t spent much time in Astrid’s bedroom. There had been so many people in and out of the house since her death, there might not be anything of hers left in the room.

“I can find something,” Astrid said, looping her arm around his.

“It needs to be a strong connection,” James said. His eyes lingered on Hiccup’s arm. “Something emotional.”

“Like Eret’s letters?” Astrid asked. “I used to read them over and over and dream of living in the city.”

“If you think they’ll work,” Hiccup said.

“Whatever it is will be used in the ritual,” James said. “You will not get it back.”

“It’s a price I am willing to pay,” she said. “I hadn’t look at them since. When I showed them to you, that’s the first time they’d been out of their hiding place since I died.”

“Okay,” James said, reading on. “The next ingredient is blood.”

“Blood?” Hiccup choked.

“Not like a sacrificial blood, a small amount will do,” James said. “But, here’s another tricky part. It needs to be from a loved one.”

“You,” Astrid said without hesitation.

“I’ll use mine,” Hiccup said. “How much?”

“Not much, nothing that will send you to the hospital,” James said. “Less than the blood donations take. Unless you are… what is it? Anemic?”

“I’m not,” Hiccup said, nodding.

This ritual was sounding more complicated by the second.

“Then the body steeps for three days,” James said.

“Three days?”

James nodded. “I’m not sure what it is about the three-day rule. Even Jesus went by it. But, we let the body steep, completely undisturbed, for three entire days, down to the second.”

“Then…” Hiccup said.

“It’s done, I think,” James said. “The book said no more about it. It did warn, however, that it is possible for another spirit to hear the call from the womb, that’s what it calls the container, and so once we start, it’s best for Astrid to stay close by it. Right beside, until it’s complete.”

“For three days?”

“I spent a hundred and thirty six days waiting for you, Hiccup,” she said, then added proudly, “Another three won’t kill me.”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Hiccup asked her.

“I am if you are,” she said. She hugged his arm. “I’m with you, Hiccup, no matter what.”

He nodded, and said to James, “Alright. We’ll do this.”

“Then we should waste no time,” James said.

 

X

 

Hiccup and James spent the rest of the day working. They outlined where the container, the womb, would be in the basement. They moved the wooden plank floor and dug through packed dirt, clay, and rocks. It was backbreaking work that felt never-ending, but at last they’d finished. James carved something into the bottom of the womb, a symbol that Hiccup had never seen before.

“What is that?”

“It’s protection against spirits looking to do harm,” James said. “It works, trust me.”

The longest part came in the filtration of the water. The store-bought water filter trickled the water out. One saucepan at a time, they boiled the water. By the time they had enough water in the womb, midnight had past.

“We shouldn’t wait long to gather the bones,” James said. “Do you have a torch? Or, what do you call them… flashlights. And we’ll probably need a hammer.”

“Somewhere,” Hiccup said.

James held the flashlight and hammer, and Hiccup carried the shovel; he asked Astrid to stay inside. He didn’t want her to see what he was about to do. She had, and sat on the bottom stair in the foyer where she could not see them when they carried the bones inside.

They walked down the sweeping, weedy lawn to the family graveyard. Hiccup found Astrid’s grave, and with a sickening plunge in his gut, he sank the tip of the shovel into the dirt above her. The shovels of dirt didn’t get easier to toss aside. With each one, he got closer to her, until, at last, the shovel struck the wooden coffin.

Struck with sudden fear at the act, Hiccup paused.

“Do you want me to take over?” James asked. He’d been studiously holding the flashlight.

“N-no,” Hiccup said. “This is something I need to do.”

James didn’t argue.

His shoulders ached. His hands ached. His legs felt like sand. Slowly, Hiccup uncovered the rest of the simple wooden coffin. James handed him the hammer, and Hiccup soon found out why. Astrid’s coffin had been nailed shut. With his shaky hands, he pulled out each nail in the light of the flashlight, until each one lay to the side.

It was done.

Hiccup heaved a breath and pulled the coffin lip up.

Astrid lay inside, or, her bones did. Her bones wore the same blue dress her ghost wore, only the real dress had faded and started to deteriorate. Puddles of ghostly white, stringy hair lay around the bare skull.

“Hiccup?” James asked. “Are you doing alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hiccup panted. He couldn’t catch his breath. “It’s just… seeing her like this… it reminds me that she’d dead.”

James didn’t say anything.

One bone at a time, they carried Astrid into the cellar until her skeleton lie, reassembled, beside the watery womb. They washed their hands, and then, one by one, Hiccup lifted the bones and placed them into the water. Strangely, the bones directed themselves to the bottom of the womb, as if they knew where they needed to go. He didn’t point it out or ask James; he was too tired to ask.

All the bones had been placed into the womb. Hiccup was too tired ask questions. He and James walked back upstairs and again, washed their hands. Astrid sat on the top stair with her chin on her knees. At the sight of Hiccup, she sprang to her feet.

“Oh, Hiccup,” she said, pity filling her eyes. “You look awful!”

“It’s hard work,” Hiccup said. “Remember when I said it would be easier if I’d been born in your time? I was wrong. I’m not made out for manual labor.”

She smiled and walked with him into her bedroom. They needed something of hers. Astrid looked through her things, just in case she’d forgotten about things, but they decided on the letters; she had forgotten about them and they stirred an emotional response. Hiccup walked the box of letters down to the cellar. This time, Astrid walked with him. James was standing beside the womb with a pocket knife in his hand.

“Are you ready?” James asked.

Hiccup nodded, feeling a tight knot form in his gut.

Hiccup knelt beside the womb and slowly dropped the letters, including the box, into the water. The water began to hiss. James held out his hand and Hiccup gingerly set his arm into his grip.

“Here it goes,” James said, and he brought the knife to Hiccup’s forearm. With one, quick, clean slice, a cut appeared along his arm. James pushed the dull side of the blade into his arm and tilted it so that the blood would run onto the wide blade.

Hiccup had kept his eyes closed. He felt the burn, the sting of bloodletting, but knew from his experience in giving blood that it would hurt a lot worse if he looked. He heard a splat and opened his eyes; James and tossed the blood on his knife into the water. He let go of Hiccup’s arm.

The water hissed again, then again, and then it began to bubble.

James held up his finger to his lips, and held up the number three. Three days. They had to wait a full three days.

James and Hiccup walked back upstairs, but Astrid stayed in the cellar. Hiccup looked behind him as he started up the stairs. The last thing he saw was Astrid sitting beside the womb, watching it roil and boil.

Back in the kitchen, James dabbed antibacterial ointment on Hiccup’s arm and wrapped it.

“She feels the pull,” James explained. “That is why she stayed. It’s good. She will be there when the vessel is ready. She will be the closest spirit. It must be strange for her, to be so close to her body and yet not be inside of it. It’s nothing we could imagine.”

“No,” Hiccup agreed. He was too tired to say much else.

Hiccup was too tired to wonder what he was going to do for three days while he waited. With his wound wrapped, he dragged himself up the stairs and into the bedroom; he didn’t care how filthy he was. Laundry would give him something else to do that next day, but right then, as he fell into bed in the same clothes he’d worn to dug up Astrid’s grave, he didn’t care.

All he wanted was sleep, and he didn’t have to look too far.

 

X

 

Laundry. Dishes. Sweeping. Refill the hole in the backyard. Clean the master bathroom. Organize the closet. Dust the office. Work on book.

Hiccup tried his best to stay busy while waiting for the three days to end. He found it hard to keep his thoughts preoccupied when Astrid’s bones were boiling in a womb underneath his feet. He was afraid to walk too loudly, in case he disturbed it.

He couldn’t concentrate on the book. However, on the second day, he found his anxiety lessened. He prepared his current outline to be sent to Heather, but he didn’t want to send it until after the three days. He didn’t want Heather calling or coming out to check on him. Instead, he rough drafted a few of the chapters to see how it worked.

It worked, at least to take his mind off Astrid. Instead, he focused on her life. On the hauntings. On the rumors of the house. He put it all into words to make his readers understand how important the house had become to him, why he’d gone so far for this ghost.

All around him, the house moaned as if it knew of the impossible dark arts going on inside of it. Floorboards creaked. The roof sighed. Doorknobs jingled. Cabinet doors swayed. Wind-like hisses and whispered seemed to follow him from room to room.

Hiccup drank half a bottle of wine in order to be able to sleep on the second night. He woke up slight hungover, but by noon he felt just as anxious. He and James took coffee on the porch and talked for a while, which he was glad for – it took his mind off things. they talked about the paranormal, mostly, and about the things which had brought both of them into the field. James had an interesting life, the finer details of which he left out. It would seem that wherever he was from was ripe with ghosts, ancient and new.

James asked, “Have you noticed the spike in activity?”

Hiccup hesitated to answer, then nodded. “Yeah. I kept seeing shadows move out of the corner of my eye, and groans and moans and whispers.”

“That’s why Astrid needed to be closest to the womb,” James said. “If she doesn’t make it to her body in time, well, I don’t know, but it won’t be good. The runes only do so much.”

“What if she doesn’t make it in time?”

“Then that means another spirit will have taken it,” James said. “We’ll have to kill whatever comes out of the water. Because the womb was targeted toward her, no other spirit will have been able to enter it cleanly. It will taint the project.”

That night, Hiccup couldn’t sleep. That night, the third night, they would know. Everything they’d done would be to fruition. While he waited, he worked on the fictional book he and Astrid had talked about. He would show her the outline in person, next time.

That night, about the same time they’d left to let the body steep in the dark and quiet, they reentered the cellar.

The womb bubbled viciously, spilling inky water onto the dirt around it. The globs of water snaked back into the womb like tentacles, without leaving a trace of its presence on the dirt floor around it. The sight wiggled his insides like black, watery tentacles fingered his organs.

That didn’t bother him the most. Astrid, who’d been sitting beside the womb last he knew, was gone. Hiccup looked around the small cellar, but she was gone. His heart plummeted into his shoes. James looked nervous, too.

Just then, as his panic rose to the highest, the water stilled.


	18. Chapter 18

Hiccup heaved his breath; he couldn’t take his eyes off the water. It had gone entirely, utterly, unbelievable still – not a drop moved. It looked solid as stone, like glass, and black as ink. The air in the basement stilled, as if in preparation; not even the dust in the air or the dirt on the floor seemed real, everything looked still as a painting.

               James wasn’t moving. He stared, mesmerized, unblinking into the womb.

               Suddenly, the water moved.

A waved rolled over its surface as if something underneath had moved. It moved again, and again – roiling, boiling, thrashing – and then a pale hand burst through the water’s surface. It clawed at the air and landed with a smack on the dirt ground beside it. another hand joined it, and the thing began to pull itself out of the water.

               “Go to her,” James said, without taking his eyes off the water.

               Hiccup didn’t question it. He ran to the womb and collapsed beside it. He grabbed onto the wet, slippery hands; the water had turned into a film. He pulled the hands; arms followed, and a torso came from the water with two legs attached. Wet blonde hair stuck to its head and hid the face.

               He pulled the pale naked body from the water. It went limp in his arms. The loose dirt of the cellar floor stuck to the pale, filmy skin. He pushed the gooey hair from the face; it looked like Astrid.

               “Astrid?” Hiccup called.

               She responded in a low grunt that faded into a moan. Her head lolled about in his arms. She was breathing; her chest rose and fell in a gently rhythm. Her bare chest, as Hiccup’s brain reminded him. He forced himself to look away from her breasts and to her face.

               “Astrid?” Hiccup asked again. “Is it you?”

               Her eyes opened ever so slightly; blue peeked back at him. They closed. She seemed to be asleep. She started to shiver.

               “The upstairs closet in the hallway, beside the master bedroom, is a linen closet. Go get a blanket,” Hiccup said to James, who then hurried up the stairs. He returned in no time with a blue and green blanket. Hiccup quickly wrapped her in it. The film on her skin began to soak through as he stood up; it was already on his clothes, seeping through with a surprising cold touch to his chest.

               They took her upstairs and Hiccup laid her down in his bed – the sheets were already dirty, no filmy paranormal goo would matter; was _this_ the infamous ectoplasm?

               The young woman who resembled Astrid moaned in her sleep. Hiccup retrieved another blanket from the closet and laid it over her, and put another underneath her head.

               “Is it her?” Hiccup asked James.

               “I don’t know,” James said. “But, her ghost wasn’t there.”

               “I know, what does that mean?”

               “My guess is that her ghost no longer exists because she’s right here in front of us,” James said. “Or, less likely, she realized that she didn’t want any of this and move on without us knowing and another ghost had taken her place.”

               Hiccup suddenly felt horrified at the idea.

               “Don’t worry, Hiccup,” James said. He set a hand on Hiccup’s shoulder in a fatherly manner. “I’m sure she’s right here. We did everything exact.”

               As he spoke, footsteps, heavy booted footsteps, sounded in the hall outside the door. They both waited, but not one entered the room. James, however, walked to the door. He peered down the hall.

               “No one,” he said.

               “Great,” Hiccup said, chuckling. “My house is haunted.”

 

X

 

               It took a while for Astrid to fully wake. She tossed and turned in her sleep; Hiccup tried to sleep beside her, but every time she moved, he would wake and sit up, hoping she had woken up. He’d put a small light in the bathroom just in case she woke up – he didn’t want her to wake up in the dark.

               Sometime in the morning, Hiccup was woken by a hand on his shoulder.

               “Hiccup? Hiccup, wake up.”                

               “Five more,” Hiccup grumbled.

               “Hiccup,” she said, firmly. “Come on, get up.”

               This time, the voice registered. He opened his eyes at once. Astrid, her hair a dried, gooey mess, stuck up at strange angles. She clutched the blankets to herself. Her skin was a bit blotchy along her shoulders and her cheeks were flushed.

               “Astrid?” Hiccup said. Sleep left him fast. “Astrid?”

               She smiled. “It’s me, isn’t it? You did it?”

               “Is it you?” he asked, too happy to hear a negative answer. He grabbed her shoulders just to feel her under his hands.

               “I think so,” Astrid said. “I feel the same, I mean, my mind feels the same. I feel a bit heavier.”

               He smiled. “We should check, just to make sure…let me see…what did we do on your mother’s birthday?”

               “We danced,” she said at once. “I taught you because you didn’t know how.”

               “Astrid,” he said, bringing his hands to her face. He almost couldn’t believe it. Astrid!

               Despite the dried goo on her skin, despite the dirty sheets, despite how grimy he felt himself, he wrapped her in a tight hug. They started laughing and couldn’t stop.

               A knock landed on the bedroom door.

               “Come in,” Hiccup said.

               James opened the door. He leaned against the doorframe. “Looks like it works?”

               “It did,” Hiccup said.

               Astrid hugged the blankets a little tighter around herself, and heaved the blankets higher on her chest.

               James smiled, a 1950s hero sort of smile, and said, “You kids get cleaned up. I’ll make breakfast.”

               He didn’t give them an option to decline. He shut the door and headed downstairs. Hiccup and Astrid, too giddy to argue, rolled out of bed and walked to the bathroom. At the door, Astrid dropped the blanket he’d wrapped her in.

               Hiccup felt his face go red.

               “Don’t try to tell me you didn’t look,” Astrid said.

               “I-I didn’t,” Hiccup said, half-lying.

               Astrid set her hands on her hips. Hiccup, quite unconsciously, flickered his gaze to her breasts, then back to the floor. Heat rose to his cheeks.

               “You’re stuck with me now, Hiccup,” Astrid said. “Forever. We’re practically married.”

               “Is that so?” Hiccup asked, trying to be as coy as her. Of course, she wasn’t a single man staring into the face of a naked woman. “I don’t remember making such a commitment.”

               “You made the commitment when you decided to bring me back,” Astrid said. “So, like I said, you’re stuck with me.”

               “Forever,” he said.

               She nodded, grinning madly.

               Hiccup walked over to her, not hiding his eyes as he took in as much of her as he could. He set his hands on the smooth skin of her waist. She met his halfway; they kissed. While they kissed, Astrid undid the buttons of his shirt.

               “I haven’t told you something,” Astrid said shyly as Hiccup added his shirt and pants to the dirty pile accumulating on the floor.

               “Oh? You’ve got a tattoo?”

               Astrid, grinning like a schoolgirl at his boxers, shook her head.

               “I…” Astrid bit her lip.

               Hiccup added his boxers to the pile. Admittedly, he felt exposed. He’d only been naked in front of one other girl before, and it had been dark in that room, and both of then had been drinking.

               Astrid walked backward into the bathroom, and Hiccup followed. He shut the door. Astrid stepped into the spacious bath and he stepped in after.

               “Yes?” Hiccup asked. He set his hand on the water faucet.

               “I,” Astrid started firmly. “I…love you.”

               Such sweet word, such a sweet mouth, from a sweet girl; what more could he have possibly asked for in that moment? Hiccup kissed her tenderly, and she kissed him.

               “I love you, too,” he said.

               “You’d better,” she whispered.

               “And I’ve got you forever,” he said.

               “Forever.”

               He started the water and ran it warm; they washed themselves, and each other, clean of the grim they’d gotten from the past three days. Once cleaned and dried, Hiccup gave Astrid a pair of his pajama pants and a t-shirt to wear.

               “We’ll have to go shopping,” Hiccup said. “You can’t wear my clothes all the time.”

               “Why not?” Astrid said. She’d pushed her hands into the deep pockets of the skating-polar-bear pants up to the elbow. “Think of all I could put in these pockets!”

               Hiccup laughed. “Yes, but those are pajamas. They’re for sleeping.”

               “You wear them around the house all the time. I’ve seen you.”

               “Yes…they’re also for lounging.”

               She tugged on a pair of his socks, too. She combed out her hair and left it loose about her shoulders.

               “Are you sure it’s not inappropriate?” she asked. “I could put it up.”

               “It’s fine,” Hiccup said. “Women are a lot less…uh, well, let’s just say the standard of what’s appropriate and what’s not has changed. Women wear their hair down all the time.”

               She took his word and together they walked out of the bedroom. The smell of breakfast filled the house.

               _Wicked wench…_

               Astrid froze before she made it to the staircase. She glanced back at him. He’d stopped in his tracks, too. He’d heard it.

               “Hiccup?” she asked, her voice small. “What was that?”

               “It wasn’t me,” he said.

               “I know,” she said. “That wasn’t your voice.”

               They listened, but heard no more of the voice. Could that voice belong to the boot-wearer who’d walked down the hallway the night before?

               They made it down the stairs and into the kitchen were James had fried bacon, eggs, and toast for three.

               “What’s this?” Hiccup asked, pointing to a dish of white and brown…things.

               “Hash browns,” James said. “I found a bag of them in your freezer.”

               “Oh,” Hiccup said. Had he bought those? Of course, Fishlegs had gone shopping a few times.

               Astrid looked at the spread with a longing in her eyes.

               “You want some coffee?” Hiccup asked her.

               She looked at his cup, curious. He handed it to her. She took a sip; her face scrunched.

               “That’s bitter,” she said.

               “Try it with cream and sugar,” James said. “It makes it smoother.”

               With a few trial and errors, Astrid worked out a cup of coffee to her liking.

               They sat down at the table together.

               Astrid held her arm out to the sunlight streaming in through the window, awe some on her face. She said, “I can feel it.”

               _Disgrace…_

               Hiccup snapped his head around, but no one stood anywhere else in the kitchen. James seemed to noticed something, too, for he was looking about the kitchen. Then he looked at Hiccup. Astrid, however, seemed preoccupied with feeling the sunshine.

               “We’ll got for a walk outside later,” Hiccup told her.

               “That sounds lovely,” she said. “But first, we should eat.”

               “Yes,” James said, pointing his fork at her.

               They began to eat, but Hiccup had more fun watching Astrid try the food; she took bites of everything and savored it like her last meal.

               “I missed food so much,” she said. “This is delicious! Luckily I couldn’t smell food either, so, it wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t realize how badly I missed this!”

               They ate in relative silent, save for Astrid’s occasional moan of pleasure. Hiccup kept his attention alert, however, because something told him that all was not well. He had heard something, twice that morning, that he didn’t like. He hadn’t heard it before. Had it had something to do with the ritual?

               They had finished eating and were working on the coffee, talking about things that had changed in 1880 that Astrid should know about, when Hiccup heard it again. It came as a faint whisper, but there was no denying:

               _I’m sorry…_

               Hiccup glanced sideways again, but saw nothing. He strained his neck to look the other way, toward the smaller hall on the opposite end of the kitchen that connected the kitchen to the living room.

               He saw it: a faint shimmer, a distortion. He locked his eyes on it. It stayed there. It was taller, not very wide, and appeared darker.

               _After all I’ve done…_

               The shimmer vanished.

               Hiccup watched the spot for a while. A hand touched his knee and bought his attention back.

               “Hiccup?”

               “Yeah?”

               “I can vote?”

               “Oh, yeah,” he said.

               “We’re all equal now,” James said. “Men, women, black, white – it doesn’t matter. A person’s a person.”

               “That’s wonderful,” Astrid said, thought through a veil of disbelief.

               “Don’t worry,” Hiccup said. “We’ll watch documentaries to catch you up on history.”

               She looked blankly at him. “A documentary?”        

               Hiccup smiled. The technology would take time for her to get used to. “It’s like a book, but they’ve made it into a series of moving pictures. There’s a narrator talking. It’s easier to show you.”

               “Oh, like those boxes where the pictures moves?” she said brightly. “The people that lived here before you had one. I liked to watch it, too.”

               “What sort of shows did you get to watch?”

               “They watched this one in black and white, the misses liked it, and a woman was already getting into trouble,” Astrid said. “Lucy something.”

               “I love Lucy.”

               “That’s it! There was this other with army men…and one set in a bar.”

               “Sounds like TV Land,” Hiccup said.

               “Is that what it’s called?”

               “It’s a station on the television,” he said. Astrid stared back at him, confused. He laughed, “Don’t worry. We’ll get one and you can see what it’s all about.”

               She seemed exited at the idea.

               That day they spent lounging about the house. They sat out on the balcony in the sunshine. Hiccup was making a list of things Astrid would need: toiletries, clothes…would he be able to explain tampons to her? Or how a bra worked? He wasn’t even sure how they worked.

               God…maybe he should call Heather and tell her what happened.

               “Hiccup,” James said. He came out onto the balcony. He held a notebook in his hands.

               “Yeah?”

               “So, as you may have thought, Astrid’s going to need a few things,” he said.

               “Yeah…” Hiccup glanced down at his list.

               “I mean, legal things,” James said, scanning Hiccup’s list. “I’ve got a contact that can help, but it will take a few days and a few…risky transactions.”

               “What do you mean?” Astrid asked.

               “I mean, you’re going to need an identity,” James said. “The government keeps track of people with something called a social security number, which you don’t have because you were born before it’s time. If they were to investigate and someone finds our that you’re not in the system, you’ll be seen as an illegal.”

               “But where would they send her?”

               James shrugged. “That’s the thing we need to fix. I think we should use Norway as our point of origin. Your father original came from there.”

               “I don’t want to go there,” Astrid said.

               “You won’t,” James said. “I can make a few calls and get things organized, but in the meantime, you shouldn’t leave the house. Don’t go anywhere where they’re going to need an ID.”

               “But…” Hiccup started. “They’re going to put her into the system?”

               “Basically,” James said. “My friend will make her a birth certificate from Norway and then forge a passport to make it look as through she traveled here when she was eighteen; she’ll have her way in. But, here’s the thing, to hid her better, she’ll need to change her name. It would be fantastic if she had married when she arrived.”

               “Then forge a marriage license,” Hiccup said. “Can he do that?”

               “He can,” James said. “I was looking for permission to marry the two of you before I did it.”

               “We’re married?” Astrid asked. “Just like that?”

               “On paper,” James said. “I’m sure you two can throw a lovely little party in the back and get married the religious or emotional way, or whichever way you’d like.”

               “Sounds good,” Hiccup said. “What do you say, Mrs. Haddock?”

               Astrid looked a bit stunned, but she nodded. “I agree, Mr. Haddock.”

               Hiccup grinned like a fool and he knew it. He’d always thought finding a wife would stressful and exasperating… but finding Astrid had been more of a chance of luck, of following his instincts and his heart. Falling for her had been so very easy.

               Sitting there, on the balcony with his soon-to-be wife, nothing else in the world could have possible mattered to him more, not the strange voices from that morning, and not the shadow that Hiccup didn’t see lingering in the room behind them, watching. All he saw in that moment was the blonde, blue-eyed girl he never knew that he needed.

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

That evening, Hiccup celebrated by making one of the freezer pizzas he’d stashed in the far-back, frostbitten regions of the freezer. Astrid awed at the pre-made frozen pizza came out of the box, out of the wrapped, and into the oven. Hiccup explained how the oven worked to the best of his knowledge, and as the pizza went in, he moved onto the fridge and the microwave. Little changes. Little steps.

               He saw the wonder in her eyes. She embraced it all, every word, every gesture. Fearless.

               In the ten minutes until the pizza would be done. They sat on the front porch, watching the late summer turn into purple hewn twilight. The cicadas were un full song, filling the distance woods with a thunderous harmony.

               “It’s so different.” Astrid rested her elbows on her knees, on the knees of his pants that she wore. “So much more than I thought. There’s just… more of everything. How do you keep track of it all?”

               He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was born into it. I’ve had my whole life to get used to how things are. I’m still trying to figure some of it out.”

               “I’m going to be so behind.”

               “We’ll catch you up.” Hiccup had already looked into getting cable, but the price had been ridiculous; he’d settled for streaming and DVD rental. The library in town had a wide range of historical documentaries to get Astrid better acquainted with all that had happened in the past two hundred years. As if she could feel this thoughts, maybe she could, her eyes softened. He said, “And I’ll be right here, beside you, the whole time. I won’t let you get lost.”

               “You’d better not,” she said sweetly. She laced her fingers with his.        

               Between the cicadas and nighttime chitters, Hiccup heard something else. It came from behind him, from the house.

               _This is how you replay me…_

               Hiccup looked behind him and in every window, but he didn’t see anyone. He looked harder into the living room window; he might have seen a distortion, but it was hard to tell through the glass.

               “Hiccup?” Astrid asked, her voice a fearful whisper. “Who was that?”

               “I-I don’t know,” Hiccup said. He rarely let the paranormal get to him, but he wouldn’t let Astrid know how creeped out he had been, too.

               The oven timer beeped, and they retreated back inside. James joined them for dinner, over which Astrid quizzed them on history. She was particularly interested in the women’s right movement.

               After the pizza had been eaten, James changed the subject. “Astrid, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how did you know to return to your body?”

               Astrid glanced down at her empty plate, brows knit together. “I’m not sure. I... I remember feeling something, a strange sort of sensation.” She put her hands against her stomach. “It pulled me. I just followed.”

               “Ah.” James nodded. “That was the body pulling the spirit back. It had been made for you, and your spirit knew it, your body knew it. That’s why I wanted you to be the closest spirit. Any spirit could have felt that pull. You needed to be the first.”

               “Speaking of spirits,” Hiccup said. “You’ve heard that voice? The creepy one.”

James’s gaze turned cold. “I have. It very well could be a nearby spirit that felt the pull, like Astrid, but Astrid got to the body first. This other spirit came, too, but now doesn’t know where it at.”

               “It seems… angry,” Hiccup said.

               “If you felt a chance to return, and you missed it, I’m sure you’d be a bit peeved, too,” James said.

               “True,” Hiccup agreed.

               James relaxed. “It very well might wander home or, in the light of the new realization that it isn’t where it should be, move on. But, I know you; you’re a great voice with spirits, Hiccup. This spirit seems in need of help. You can help it, just like you’ve helped so many others. Pulling it in might have been a favor.”

               Hiccup didn’t want to disagree. He would have liked a few days with Astrid first, before he started to go ghost hunting again. The angry spirits were the difficult ones. They’d rather shout than listen, especially if it was a male spirit. Men didn’t want to talk feelings with other men.

               After the few dishes had been washed, which Hiccup and Astrid washed together, they retreated upstairs. James went into the guest room. Together, Hiccup and Astrid stripped the dirty bedsheets from the bed and plopped them on top of the overflowing hamper. Hiccup promised they’d do laundry sometime the next day; she seemed keen to seen how the laundry-washer worked. Given her history with a washboard, he didn’t blame her.

               After washing faces and brushing teeth (Hiccup had found a spare toothbrush. Thank goodness for his mother’s fretting over his dental hygiene.) they fell into the bed together. Astrid made no qualms about sleeping in the room that had once been her parents instead of her own. It wouldn’t have mattered. He would have slept on the floor just to be beside her.

               Their goodnight kiss turned into kiss _es_ , which turned more tender with each touch.  

               “You know, Hiccup,” Astrid’s voice turned as soft as velvet. “We did get married today, if only on paper.”

               And in blood, it would seem, since part of his blood had been used in the ritual.

               “Hmm,” he said against her lips.

               “It’s our wedding night.”

His hand, which had been setting on her waist, slipped below the waistband of the pajama pants she wore.

               “Are you sure?”

               “Yes,” she said, hand in his hair. “One hundred and thirty years sure.”

Butterflies fluttered around his chest as they kissed; between kisses their clothes landed on the floor, piece by piece. With the shifting of the blanket, their own breaths and audible pleasure, they didn’t hear the voice in the hall. Hiccup focused his attention on the women underneath him – his wife – and refused to divide that attention with anything. Even after he had finished, he knelt over her, relishing in the delight they had shared.

               He couldn’t ignore it, however, when the bitter, angry voice spoke. It sounded as thought the spirit shouted directly into Hiccup’s ear:

               _You’re just like your mother!_

Hiccup collapsed and Astrid yanked the blanket over herself. The voice, now loud, sounded familiar;

               “That’s…” Astrid said, disbelieving. Her hands tightened on the blanket covering her bare chest. She swallowed. “My father?”

               “But… if he had been haunting the house, wouldn’t you have known?” Hiccup turned to her. Unless he’d been called by the ritual. Where had his spirit been before?

               She answered in a shrill scream; the alarm clock on the bedside table threw toward her, its red numbers like a demon’s eyes. The cord snapped and the alarm clock fell, dark-faced, to the floor with a clatter. The books on the shelves began to rattle.

               “Get out,” Hiccup said. He’s seen this kind of activity. There was no stopping it. There was only surviving. “Now!”

               Between the rattling books and crumping pages, they jumped out of bed and grabbed their clothes on the way to the door. As Hiccup fought to open in, for some force seemed to have glued it shut, Astrid quick pulled his shirt and pajama pants over her self, and fluffed out his shirt and pulled it down over his head. She had his pants ready for his to step into. He flung the door open at last and they ran into the hallway. Hiccup, realizing how naked his lower half was, quickly stepped into the pants Astrid held for him.  

               None too soon; James began to beat on the inside of the guest room door. It, too, had been glued shut. James shouted, “Hiccup! Astrid! What is going on out?”

               Why had their door opened, then? Unless the spirit had wanted it.

               “Poltergeist!” Hiccup shouted as he made for the stairs. Outside. They needed to get outside and away from her father’s angry energy. It must have returned with the ritual – Hiccup saw no other way that he could have lingered in the house without Astrid or him or James knowing about it.

               Hiccup made it to the stairs and had his foot on the first step. He turned around to look at Astrid, and he saw it: the manifestation. The apparition looked horrible, less like a person and more like a thick fog with a warped face. It looked somewhat like Randal, but the twisted, anger part of him. He leered at Astrid.

               “Astrid, look out!”

               Astrid turned and jumped at the same time. Hiccup stepped back into the hall so she would have room to avoid being touched by the manifestation. Her father’s foggy appeared grew arms, then a neck, then a torso; it lunged at her. Its ghostly hands caught her by the arm.

               She stood at the top of the stairs, and Hiccup only saw his too-long pajama pants tangled about her feet too late.

She slipped.

               She fell.

               “No!” Hiccup shouted his throat sore. He lunged at her, not minding the ghost he went through; he didn’t care about it’s feelings right now. His fingers closed around her wrist, but she’d already begun moving backward.

               She tumbled backward down the stairs and landed at the bottom.

               Hiccup’s heart fell, shattered, and lay there in a million pieces. The cry that came from his throat, however, paled to the one the foggy manifestation let out. It clamored down the stairs, half-fog, half-ghost, and collapsed beside Astrid.

Hiccup, his feet refusing to work properly, held on to the banister and made his way down the steps. He felt like throwing himself down them, too.

               “What have I done?” the apparition cried, over and over again. “What have I done? My baby girl…”

               “You didn’t kill her,” Hiccup said to the spirit of Randal. Bleary white eyes looked up at him. Even though ghostly, he cried. The words caught in his throat like broken glass, piece of his heart, maybe. “She slipped. You tried to catch her. I saw you. You didn’t push her. It was an accident. They…they happen.”

               Randal took these words in, nodding, crying all the while. “She…she didn’t…”

               “She didn’t cheat on Eret,” Hiccup said. “It was me she was seeing. I was like a ghost, to her.”

               Randal cried harder.

               “You did what any father would have,” Hiccup said, even thought he doubted what he said. “You wanted to protect her from a mistake, a huge mistake, and after finding out what your own wife had done, you had doubt about any woman. You feared Astrid would make the same mistake Ingrid did.”

               Randal nodded. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

               “I know,” Hiccup said. “I believe you. I saw.”

               Hiccup, refusing to look at Astrid, to take in whatever broken angle her neck had taken, or whatever other bones had broken, kept his attention on Randal. Randal, however, hadn’t looked away from his daughter. When his eyes changed, when his brows rose, when his mouth twitched, Hiccup risked it. He looked down at Astrid.

               She looked back.

               Hiccup fell to his knees. “Astrid?”

               “Everything hurts.” She grimaced.

Slowly, Astrid sat up. She put a hand to her head where a cut had appeared. She touched her fingers to it and winced.

               “Astrid?” Randal asked, his fear fading.

               Astrid glanced at the apparition of her father. Confusion turned to acknowledgement. “I thought I heard you two talking. It wasn’t a dream?”          

               “I guess not,” Hiccup said. Piece by piece, his heart stitched back together. He quickly checked Astrid over. “Does anything feel broken?”

               How would they take her to the hospital without identification? Without health insurance? Without a medical history?

               Astrid wiggled each of her limbs. “No.”

               “No broken bones,” Hiccup said. He looked to Randal, who looked beside himself with joy. “See? She’s fine. Nothing to worry about.”

               “Astrid’s fine,” he repeated.

               “I’m okay,” Astrid said to him.

               “I’m sorry,” Randal said.

               “It’s okay, I forgive you,” Astrid said, although her voice came out a bit strained. “You were doing what you thought was best. And… if none of that had happened,” Her gaze shifted to Hiccup’s.

               He understood what she meant. She wouldn’t have met him.

               Randal’s sobs turned joyful.

               Hiccup recognized the soft glow that surrounded Randal’s foggy apparition; it grew from somewhere within him, until it engulfed him. The soft light grew, dimmed, and vanished, and Randal was no longer there.

               “Shit,” James said from the top of the stairs. “You should write fiction, too, because no one is going to believe any of this.”

               “Speaking of fiction,” Hiccup said, he turned to Astrid, “I worked on that romance we talked about.”

               “Are you two okay?” James asked.

               Hiccup stood. His legs still felt a bit strangely sand-filled. He reached his hands down and helped Astrid to her feet, who then did another self-check up of her limbs.

               “Good?” Hiccup asked.

               “Yes,” Astrid said. “I’ll be a bit bruised tomorrow and sore, but I’m okay.”

 

X

 

               Since none of them could sleep after Randal’s appearance, they reconvened in the living room with a glass of wine each. They spoke about the oddity of it all, of her father being called to the ritual, too.

               “He carried guilt to his grave,” Hiccup said. “He thought he killed his daughter, his only remaining child, and blamed himself. He never told anyone about it. Your mother declined quickly after your death and he probably blamed herself for it.”

               “I remember them sitting by the fire,” Astrid said. “Father would be talking, but it was like Mother was there. She would stare at the fire without answering him. It was… sad to watch. Sometimes, I thought she could see or hear me, but I don’t know. It feels so long ago.”

               “But they’re at rest now,” Hiccup said, picking up her hand. “She is with the children she lost and her husband.”

               “I’ll be with them again, but not for a while,” Astrid said.

               “Not for a long while,” Hiccup said.

               Because none of them could sleep, even after the wine, they talked about a proper ending for Hiccup’s book. Since they couldn’t come out and say what exactly had happened, they needed a believable ending for the circumstances.

               They decided, sometimes after midnight, that Astrid had indeed fallen and blamed her father; she had been restless because of it. She didn’t remember falling or who had been there, and once she remembered, she became angry. However, after a counseling moment with Hiccup, she was able to move on and the house became quiet.

               “In the fiction book,” Hiccup said, starting to feel the drowsiness coming in now that dawn approached, “it will be much more exciting.”

 

X

 

               In the coming days, James’s contacts came through. Astrid had been entered in the system as a immigrant from Norway, complete with passport, travel papers, and birth certificate. She had then met Hiccup through an online contact. They’d connected. They’d fallen in love at first sight like any sickeningly romantic love story. They’d eloped that summer and she, Astrid Haddock, now lived with him. Her new State ID card would expire in a few weeks and she would get a brand new, totally legal ID instead.

               “And you’re sure all of this is going to work out without a hitch?” Hiccup asked as James prepared to depart.

               “I’m sure,” James said. “Though, if it doesn’t, I can smuggle you out of the country. I’ve got people close to the Canadian border.”

               “Where would we go?”

               “I can find you a spot,” he said. “It’s easier to live under the radar when you’re… living in certain places. Like me.”

               “Where do you live?” Hiccup asked.

               James smiled. “It’s a secret. I’d have to blindfold you the entire way. Inducing the flight.”

               Hiccup and Astrid watched him drive his rented car down the drive and out of sight.

               “He’s a bit strange,” Astrid said. “But I like him.”

               “We can’t send him a Christmas card though,” Hiccup said as though it ruined the entire friendship. “We don’t know where he lives.”

               “Can’t you send one faster through the internet?”

               “I can,” Hiccup said. “But it doesn’t have the same luster as the real cards that you can tape up over the doorway.”

               They wandered back into the house – _their_ house. They had a book to write together, because Hiccup admitted that he didn’t have experience writing romance. He would finish his nonfiction book about the house and send the completed draft to Heather. He would call her and Fishlegs for a weekend getaway. He would call his parents. He would, in time, introduce them all to his wife, but that was at least another day away.

Before that, he would take Astrid shopping for her own clothes and hair products. They would consume a historical documentary a day, and Astrid would come back from the library with five books, the maximum number allowed to a patron, and read while Hiccup wrote.

On a cool autumn day, Stoick and Valka would come to their son’s home on his request and be delighted to find the charming young woman who’d moved in. Hiccup would hold off on the ‘we also eloped’ part of the talk until after dinner, to which his father beamed and hugged his son and daughter-in-law so tightly their ribs creaked.

 

X

 

That winter, their first winter together, Astrid and Hiccup woke up to a light snowfall. It had been snowing a while, and it covered the ground and bare tree limbs.

“Look at that,” Astrid said, in a red sweater she’d picked out. “It’s so beautiful.”

Hiccup reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. With a few touches of his forefinger, a charming guitar melody began to play. He set the phone on the mantel, under which a fire warmed the living room.

“Dance with me?” Hiccup asked, holding his hand out to her.

“Of course, kind sir,” Astrid said, and she gracefully slipped her hand into his. They began to dance about the floor. “Oh, you’ve learned to lead.”

“I had a great teacher,” he said.

She laughed, a sound he’d never tire of.

And they dance, just like they’d danced nearly one hundred and thirty years before, and like they would in the many years to come.

              

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my story - it means the world to a writer! Thank you enjoying, for the kind messages, the kudos, all of it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!


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